File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is one of the oldest and most commonly used protocols found on the Internet today. Its purpose is to reliably transfer files between computer hosts on a network without requiring the user to log directly into the remote host or have knowledge of how to use the remote system. It allows users to access files on remote systems using a standard set of simple commands.

This chapter outlines the basics of the FTP protocol, as well as configuration options for the primary FTP server shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, vsftpd.