This repository defines a Docker image that runs a simple pure-ftpd FTPS server.

FTP users are configured by providing a text file as the Docker secret ftp-passwd that is a list of USERNAME:PASSWORD pairs, one per line.

FTP data is in /srv/ftp, which you can mount. An upload log is written to /srv/ftp/upload.log, unless you set the environment variable DISABLE_UPLOAD_LOG (note this file is flocked when it's being written).

Logs are written to /var/log/pure-ftpd and to the container's STDOUT, unless you set the environment variable DISABLE_LOG_FILE.

Real SSL certificates can be configured by pointing the symlinks /etc/pure-ftpd/ssl-cert.key -> /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key and /etc/pure-ftpd/ssl-cert.pem -> /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem in the image at the desired SSL certificates.

If the environment variable VALKEY_HOST is set, then log messages are sent to the stream pure-ftpd.log and upload messages to pure-ftpd.uploads. The Valkey host not being available is (currently) not a fatal error. Note these streams are not cleaned up by this container, so you'll need to, for example, do a regular XTRIM on them.

To run a quick test of this server:

docker build . -t 'pure-ftpd:testing' && docker system prune -f
echo "test_user:PASS_WORD" >/tmp/dummy-ftp-passwd
docker run --rm --mount type=bind,source=/tmp/dummy-ftp-passwd,target=/run/secrets/ftp-passwd,readonly \
    --publish "127.0.0.1:2121:21" --publish "127.0.0.1:30000-30009:30000-30009" --init pure-ftpd:testing
lftp -e 'set ssl:verify-certificate no' -u test_user,PASS_WORD localhost:2121

To run the test suite on locally spawned Docker containers, use tests/run-local-tests.sh. The script tests/ftp-tests.pl can also be used on a deployed server. lftp and valkey-cli are required for the tests.

Copyright © 2025 Hauke Dämpfling (haukex@zero-g.net) at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin, Germany, https://www.igb-berlin.de/

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

Pure-FTPd, which is not distributed as part of this source repository, is Copyright (c) 2001 - 2025 Frank Denis with help of contributors, and is covered by the same license terms. It is available at https://github.com/jedisct1/pure-ftpd and https://www.pureftpd.org/.