Just about every Linux distribution comes with WU-FTPD (www.wu-ftpd.org) as it's default FTP server. If it is not meeting your needs, or you want to try something new and exciting, then you should check out www.proftpd.org. The ProFtpd server is very flexible and powerful, but since both the Reference and the Configuration sections only list the configuration directives, I figured out would put up a page on how to quickly get things up and running.

The instructions here are for standard user access as well as for anonymous logins and is run under inetd. It assumes that the chroot jail directory for anonymous FTP is /home/ftp.

STEP 1: Get the distribution package.
Go to www.proftpd.org and follow their instructions as to where to get the most recent release of the software.

STEP 2: Stick the package in your /tmp directory and issue the command:
gunzip whateverthenameis.tar.gz, then issue the command:
tar xvf whateverthenameis.tar and you will find a new directory in your /tmp directory named proftpsomethign. Change into that directory and proceed to step 3.

STEP 3: Read over the INSTALL and README files for any late breaking news.

STEP 4: Issue the following commands:

./configure

make

make install

STEP 6: You now want to change directories (cd ) to /usr/local/etc and replace the existing file named proftp.conf with the following:

                            #---start cut and paste---

# This is a basic ProFTPD configuration file (rename it to 
# 'proftpd.conf' for actual use.  It establishes a single server
# and a single anonymous login.  It assumes that you have a user/group
# "nobody" and "ftp" for normal operation and anon.

ServerName			"YourDomainNameHere.Com"
ServerType			inetd
DefaultServer			on

# Port 21 is the standard FTP port.
Port				21
# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new dirs and files
# from being group and world writable.
Umask				022

# To prevent DoS attacks, set the maximum number of child processes
# to 30.  If you need to allow more than 30 concurrent connections
# at once, simply increase this value.  Note that this ONLY works
# in standalone mode, in inetd mode you should use an inetd server
# that allows you to limit maximum number of processes per service
# (such as xinetd)
MaxInstances			30

# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.
User				nobody
Group				nobody

# Normally, we want files to be overwriteable.
<Directory /usr/local/private>
  AllowOverwrite		on
</Directory>

# A basic anonymous configuration, no upload directories.
<Anonymous ~ftp>
  User				ftp
  Group				ftp
  # We want clients to be able to login with "anonymous" as well as "ftp"
  UserAlias			anonymous ftp

  # Limit the maximum number of anonymous logins
  MaxClients			25

  # We want 'welcome.msg' displayed at login, and '.message' displayed
  # in each newly chdired directory.
  DisplayLogin			welcome.msg
  DisplayFirstChdir		.message

  # Limit WRITE everywhere in the anonymous chroot

  <Limit WRITE>
    DenyAll
  </Limit>

</Anonymous>
                           #---end cut and paste---

STEP 7: Edit your /etc/inetd.conf file. You will find a line that looks like this:

ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.ftpd -l -a

#ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.ftpd -l -a

ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/sbin/proftpd proftpd

To get the actual number, give the following command

ps ax | more (ps -ef on other un*x based systems)

It will most likely have a very low number since it starts running as the system is booted, such as:

292 ? S 0:02 inetd

In this case the process id number is 292, so the command would be:

kill -HUP 292