# vsftp error: 500 OOPS: vsftpd: refusing to run with [solved]

## cwc

I'm ftping on a local network.

I got this error:

500 OOPS: vsftpd: refusing to run with writable root inside chroot()

here is my vsftp.conf

```

chown_username=cwc

anon_root=/home/cwc

anonymous_enable=NO

#

# Uncomment this to allow local users to log in.

local_enable=YES

#

# Uncomment this to enable any form of FTP write command.

write_enable=YES

#

# Default umask for local users is 077. You may wish to change this to 022,

# if your users expect that (022 is used by most other ftpd's)

local_umask=022

#

# Uncomment this to allow the anonymous FTP user to upload files. This only

# has an effect if the above global write enable is activated. Also, you will

# obviously need to create a directory writable by the FTP user.

#anon_upload_enable=YES

#

# Uncomment this if you want the anonymous FTP user to be able to create

# new directories.

#anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES

#

# Activate directory messages - messages given to remote users when they

# go into a certain directory.

dirmessage_enable=YES

#

# Activate logging of uploads/downloads.

xferlog_enable=YES

#

# Make sure PORT transfer connections originate from port 20 (ftp-data).

connect_from_port_20=YES

#

# If you want, you can arrange for uploaded anonymous files to be owned by

# a different user. Note! Using "root" for uploaded files is not

# recommended!

#chown_uploads=YES

#chown_username=whoever

#

# You may override where the log file goes if you like. The default is shown

# below.

#xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log

#

# If you want, you can have your log file in standard ftpd xferlog format.

# Note that the default log file location is /var/log/xferlog in this case.

#xferlog_std_format=YES

#

# You may change the default value for timing out an idle session.

#idle_session_timeout=600

#

# You may change the default value for timing out a data connection.

#data_connection_timeout=120

#

# It is recommended that you define on your system a unique user which the

# ftp server can use as a totally isolated and unprivileged user.

#nopriv_user=ftpsecure

#

# Enable this and the server will recognise asynchronous ABOR requests. Not

# recommended for security (the code is non-trivial). Not enabling it,

# however, may confuse older FTP clients.

#async_abor_enable=YES

#

# By default the server will pretend to allow ASCII mode but in fact ignore

# the request. Turn on the below options to have the server actually do ASCII

# mangling on files when in ASCII mode.

# Beware that on some FTP servers, ASCII support allows a denial of service

# attack (DoS) via the command "SIZE /big/file" in ASCII mode. vsftpd

# predicted this attack and has always been safe, reporting the size of the

# raw file.

# ASCII mangling is a horrible feature of the protocol.

#ascii_upload_enable=YES

#ascii_download_enable=YES

#

# You may fully customise the login banner string:

#ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah FTP service.

#

# You may specify a file of disallowed anonymous e-mail addresses. Apparently

# useful for combatting certain DoS attacks.

#deny_email_enable=YES

# (default follows)

#banned_email_file=/etc/vsftpd/banned_emails

#

# You may specify an explicit list of local users to chroot() to their home

# directory. If chroot_local_user is YES, then this list becomes a list of

# users to NOT chroot().

#cwc 

chroot_local_user=YES

#chroot_list_enable=YES

# (default follows)

#chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd/chroot_list

#

# You may activate the "-R" option to the builtin ls. This is disabled by

# default to avoid remote users being able to cause excessive I/O on large

# sites. However, some broken FTP clients such as "ncftp" and "mirror" assume

# the presence of the "-R" option, so there is a strong case for enabling it.

#ls_recurse_enable=YES

#

# When "listen" directive is enabled, vsftpd runs in standalone mode and

# listens on IPv4 sockets. This directive cannot be used in conjunction

# with the listen_ipv6 directive.

listen=YES

#

# This directive enables listening on IPv6 sockets. To listen on IPv4 and IPv6

# sockets, you must run two copies of vsftpd with two configuration files.

# Make sure, that one of the listen options is commented !!

#listen_ipv6=YES

```

----------

## eccerr0r

I don't use vsftpd but I recall some other ftpd daemon, for security purposes, the directory that the ftpd dumps you in as "root" directory must not be writeable by the user the daemon runs under - to prevent them from making directories like "lib", "etc" and changing the behavior of that ftpd.

Try having it chroot into a directory that's not owned by the user the ftpd is running as?

----------

## cwc

 *eccerr0r wrote:*   

> I don't use vsftpd but I recall some other ftpd daemon, for security purposes, the directory that the ftpd dumps you in as "root" directory must not be writeable by the user the daemon runs under - to prevent them from making directories like "lib", "etc" and changing the behavior of that ftpd.
> 
> Try having it chroot into a directory that's not owned by the user the ftpd is running as?

 

Thanks for the tip!

I noticed vsftp was updated on 4/13/12  I forgot.  I just took the example config file and copied it to vsftp.conf  ten commented out what I needed.  I also added:

chown_uploads=YES

chown_username=cwc

I'm not sure if I will port forward this server?  I really don't need to at this point.

----------

## javeree

After upgrading vsftpd to 2.3.5 I am also hitting this problem woth the message about an unwriteable chroot, and no matter what I do, I cannot get a situation where I can let my virtual users write (not even with the examples provided with the ebuild).

<rant>Do people really think they are helping security this way ? Don't they realize that users are going to try to escape these restrictions by going through hoops that may be a thousand times more insecure that the problem they are trying to solve ?

Right now, I am forced to go back to version 2.3.4, so the gain in security is 0% if not worse (because I cannot have bugfixes anymore)</rant>

What I want seems simple enough: 

1. I want to have a number of virtual users, with each virtual user its own directory

/mnt/ftp/virtual_user_1

/mnt/ftp/virtual_user_2

.....

The virtual user must have read and write access to this directory through this directory.

NO anonymous access needed, no access by local users needed.

That doesn't sound to hard, does it ?

I've tried it with more combinations of vsftpd.conf settings and directory settings that I can count without success.

Below you can find my configuration that worked beautifully in 2.3.4, and fail in 2.3.5

```

#/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

syslog_enable=NO

dual_log_enable=NO

xferlog_std_format=NO

xferlog_enable=YES

xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd/xferlog.log

vsftpd_log_file=/var/log/vsftpd/vsftpd.log

log_ftp_protocol=YES

listen=YES

idle_session_timeout=600

data_connection_timeout=120

use_sendfile=NO

banner_file=/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.banner

dirmessage_enable=YES

ascii_upload_enable=NO

ascii_download_enable=NO

chroot_list_enable=NO

ls_recurse_enable=NO

anonymous_enable=NO

anon_upload_enable=NO

anon_mkdir_write_enable=NO

chown_uploads=NO

pam_service_name=vsftpd

local_enable=YES

user_config_dir=/etc/vsftpd/userconfig

guest_enable=YES

virtual_use_local_privs=YES

chroot_local_user=YES

```

```

#/etc/vsftpd/userconfig/virtual_user_1

anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES

anon_other_write_enable=YES

anon_upload_enable=YES

write_enable=YES

local_root=/mnt/ftp/virtual_user_1

```

```
ls -ld /mnt/ftp/virtual_user_1

drwx------ 2 ftp root 4096 11 jun 16:24 /mnt/ftp/virtual_user_1
```

It really would be nice if the FAQ, instead of telling me I am 'a careless user who turned on chroot (isn't chroot supposed to be something a careless user would not turn on ?) and that I have a 'dodgy ownership of the ftp home directory' (why do they think I refrain from using /home/ftp ?), would tell me what a correct and non-dodgy setup would be for the assumingly simple scenario that I outlined above.

----------

## levicki

It would be nice if Gentoo team could provide us with a vsftpd build where vsftpd.conf option allow_writeable_chroot=YES is recognized and works.

I have solved my problem with this stupid security change by uninstalling vsftpd and installing pure-ftpd instead.

----------

