Star / Stop FTP server on FreeBSD / OpenBSD

Q. How do I stop / start default FTP server on FreeBSD or OpenBSD UNIX system?

A. ftpd is the Internet File Transfer Protocol server under BSD and configured via inetd. The ftpd utility is the Internet File Transfer Protocol server process. The server uses the TCP protocol and listens at the port specified or by default at port 21.

The inetd server should be run at boot time by /etc/rc. It then listens for connections on certain internet sockets. When a connection is found on one of its sockets, it decides what service the socket corresponds to, and invokes a program to service the request. The server program is invoked with the service socket as its standard input, output and error descriptors. After the program is finished, inetd continues to listen on the socket.

Task: Disable FTPD

Login as root user.

To disable ftpd open /etc/inetd.conf file:
# vi /etc/inetd.conf

Find line:
ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/libexec/ftpd ftpd -l

To disable a service, comment it out by prefixing the line with '#'.
#ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/libexec/ftpd ftpd -l

Save and close the file.

Task: Restart inetd

Now just restart inetd, enter:
# /etc/rc.d/inetd restart
OR if you are using OpenBSD:
# kill -HUP `cat /var/run/inetd.pid`

To enable ftp, reverse the step # 1.

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