How to Enable Verbose Logging for VSFTPD?

The main configuration file for VSFTPD is ‘/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf‘. When verbose logging is enabled you need to disable the normal logging option, i.e xferlog_std_format=NO.

Below are the 2 options, that come in picture while configuring the logging in vsftpd.

xferlog_std_format: When enabled in conjunction with xferlog_enable, the log is written to the file specified in the xferlog_file directive (/var/log/xferlog by default)

log_ftp_protocol: When enabled in conjunction with xferlog_enable and with xferlog_std_format set to NO, all FTP commands and responses are logged in /var/log/vsftpd.log.

1. By default the logging is enabled through the below entry.

# vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
xferlog_std_format=YES

2. However, this will show only file activity. If you require more verbose logging, including connections and commands you will need to add the line below:

# vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
log_ftp_protocol=YES

3. As discussed earlier, set the parameter xferlog_std_format as NO, to disable normal logging.

# vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
xferlog_std_format=YES

Note: When this is enabled, all FTP requests and responses are logged. This is very useful for debugging. You may comment out this line once you are done with the debugging.