Installing TFTP server in Linux

I recently needed a file server to keep boot images and configuration files to be transferred on switches and routers.

I decided to use TFTP because of its simplicity and low memory requirements
Below the installation steps  used on a  computer loaded with Linux Mint 14.

In the man documentation for tftpd we see the below paragraph :

     The use of tftp(1) does not require an account or password on the remote system.  Due to the lack of authentication information, tftpd will allow only publicly readable files to be accessed.  Files may be written  only if they already exist and are publicly writable.  Note that this extends the concept of “public” to include all users on all hosts that can be reached through the network; 

This explains the behavior of the TFTP server, that is : It will upload a file if it only exists and are publicly writable. Some people are trying to load a file without these prerequisites and get an error.They think that this is an issue with the application or a bug in the TFTP version. But it is all written in the documentation.

If you need a TFTP server to transfer files to, then use atftp (see my post Installing TFTP server atftpd in Linux)

Install the following packages

 sudo apt-get install xinetd tftpd tftp  

Create /etc/xinetd.d/tftp and add the following  entry

 service tftp  
 {  
   protocol = udp  
   port = 69  
   socket_type = dgram  
   wait = yes  
   user = nobody  
   server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd  
   server_args = /tftpboot -s  
   disable = no  
 }  

Create a directory /tftpboot in root (as per server_args above) in above and change mode and owner

 sudo mkdir /tftpboot  
 sudo chmod -R 777 /tftpboot  
 sudo chown -R nobody /tftpboot  

Start the TFTP service
sudo service xinetd stop

sudo service xinetd start


DOWNLOADING from  the TFTP server
Create a new file under /tftpboot

 touch /tftpboot/abcd.cfg  

Go to another folder and connect to the TFTP server and GET the files

 tftp 192.168.0.99  
 tftp> get abcd.cfg  

It should appear in the current folder

  ls -al abcd.cfg  
 -rw-r--r-- 1 stelios stelios  0 Sep 23 20:07 abcd.cfg  

UPLOADING to the TFTP server

 tftp localhost  
 tftp> put ftp-logs.cfg  
 Error code 2: Access violation  

Create an empty file under the /tftpboot, change permissions

 touch ftp-logs.cfg

 chmod oa+w ftp-logs.cfg  

ls -al /tftpboot/ftp-logs.cfg   
 -rw-rw-rw- 1 stelios stelios 229 Sep 23 21:43 /tftpboot/ftp-logs.cfg  

Finally , the file was uploaded to the TFTP server

 tftp> put ftp-logs.cfg  
 Sent 235 bytes in 0.0 seconds