For vsftpd (“Very Secure File Transfer Protocol Daemon”), the configuration is exceedingly simple:

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

then:

sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

ensure you have the following parameters set right:

# Depending on the version you're running, you might want to set the following 

# parameter to YES 

# (if affected by https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vsftpd/+bug/1313450)

listen=YES

# to allow local users to log on:

local_enable=YES

#if you want write access too:

write_enable=YES

# Set anonymous user directory to /srv/ftp (no default)

anon_root=/srv/ftp

# Uncomment this to allow the anonymous FTP user to upload files. This only

# has an effect if the above global write enable is activated. Also, you will

# obviously need to create a directory writable by the FTP user.

#anon_upload_enable=YES

#

# Uncomment this if you want the anonymous FTP user to be able to create

# new directories.

#anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES



# following for debugging purposes (to ensure you're on the right server)

ftpd_banner=Welcome to Aravind's FTP service.



# Now restrict users to their home directories:

chroot_local_user=YES

allow_writeable_chroot=YES

And now, if you want to set a particular user to a particular directory, just create a user with a particular directory:

sudo adduser ftpuser --home /usr/local/example

To test:

Go to a terminal on the machine running vsftpd and type: ftp 127.0.0.1 and if you're greeted by your own banner, vsftpd works!

Then test on the same machine to its public address: ftp 1.2.3.4 and finally from a remote machine to the public address. If something goes wrong with the public addresses, check your firewall settings.

Additional notes:

If you don't want the user to log on, add the --shell /bin/false parameter to the adduser command.

You might also want to delete all the directories/files (Desktop, Pictures, ... that the adduser created if you don't want them there...

Done!