Public bug reported: vsftpd 2.3.5 adds additional security checks which complain when the root directory inside a chroot is writeable. While this is a legitimate concern, it has been an issue with chrooted systems since they began, and many installations knowingly balance that issue with convenience.
As such, the internet at large is in rebellion against this version of vsftpd - just search for "vsftpd: refusing to run with writable root inside chroot()", and the result are a pile of workarounds, from "compile your own" to "install the package from an earlier version of Ubuntu". These are suboptimal solutions in that it becomes too easy to forget that you manually installed some things and old and unpatched versions proliferate. When a release such as 12.04 has a 5 year support cycle, this is a recipe for disaster. The vsftpd maintainers have added an "allow_writeable_chroot" option in later versions which bypasses this offending check. (I know it is in 3.0.0 at least). Either upgrading vsftpd in 12.04 to 3.0.0 or backporting this to 2.3.5 would be acceptable solutions - the latter likely being preferable. ** Affects: vsftpd (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1065714 Title: vsftpd 2.3.5 needs allow_writeable_chroot option To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vsftpd/+bug/1065714/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs