Python FTP server library provides a high-level portable interface to easily write very efficient, scalable and asynchronous FTP servers with Python. It is the most complete RFC-959 FTP server implementation available for Python programming language and it's used in projects like Google Chromium and Bazaar and included in Debian, Fedora and FreeBSD package repositories.
- Extremely lightweight, fast and scalable (see why and benchmarks).
- Uses sendfile(2) (see pysendfile) system call for uploads.
- Uses epoll() / kqueue() / select() to handle concurrency asynchronously.
- ...But can optionally skip to a multiple thread / process model (as in: you'll be free to block or use slow filesystems).
- Portable: entirely written in pure Python; works with Python from 2.6 to 3.5 by using a single code base.
- Supports FTPS (RFC-4217), IPv6 (RFC-2428), Unicode file names (RFC-2640), MLSD/MLST commands (RFC-3659).
- Support for virtual users and virtual filesystem.
- Extremely flexible system of "authorizers" able to manage both "virtual" and "real" users on on both UNIX and Windows.
- Test coverage close to 100%.
Despite being written in an intepreted language, pyftpdlib has transfer rates superior to most common UNIX FTP servers. It also scales better since whereas vsftpd and proftpd use multiple processes to achieve concurrency, pyftpdlib will only use one process and handle concurrency asynchronously (see the C10K problem). Here are some benchmarks made against my Linux 3.0.0 box, Intel core-duo 3.1 Ghz:
| benchmark type | pyftpdlib | proftpd | speedup |
| STOR (client -> server) | 585.90 MB/sec | 600.49 MB/sec | -0.02x |
| RETR (server -> client) | 1652.72 MB/sec | 1524.05 MB/sec | +0.08 |
| 300 concurrent clients (connect, login) | 0.19 secs | 9.98 secs | +51x |
| STOR (1 file with 300 idle clients) | 585.59 MB/sec | 518.55 MB/sec | +0.1x |
| RETR (1 file with 300 idle clients) | 1497.58 MB/sec | 1478.19 MB/sec | 0x |
| 300 concurrent clients (RETR 10M file) | 3.41 secs | 3.60 secs | +0.05x |
| 300 concurrent clients (STOR 10M file) | 8.60 secs | 11.56 secs | +0.3x |
| 300 concurrent clients (QUIT) | 0.03 secs | 0.39 secs | +12x |
| benchmark type | pyftpdlib | vsftpd | speedup |
| STOR (client -> server) | 585.90 MB/sec | 611.73 MB/sec | -0.04x |
| RETR (server -> client) | 1652.72 MB/sec | 1512.92 MB/sec | +0.09 |
| 300 concurrent clients (connect, login) | 0.19 secs | 20.39 secs | +106x |
| STOR (1 file with 300 idle clients) | 585.59 MB/sec | 610.23 MB/sec | -0.04x |
| RETR (1 file with 300 idle clients) | 1497.58 MB/sec | 1493.01 MB/sec | 0x |
| 300 concurrent clients (RETR 10M file) | 3.41 secs | 3.67 secs | +0.07x |
| 300 concurrent clients (STOR 10M file) | 8.60 secs | 9.82 secs | +0.07x |
| 300 concurrent clients (QUIT) | 0.03 secs | 0.01 secs | +0.14x |
For more benchmarks see here.
>>> from pyftpdlib.authorizers import DummyAuthorizer
>>> from pyftpdlib.handlers import FTPHandler
>>> from pyftpdlib.servers import FTPServer
>>>
>>> authorizer = DummyAuthorizer()
>>> authorizer.add_user("user", "12345", "/home/giampaolo", perm="elradfmwMT")
>>> authorizer.add_anonymous("/home/nobody")
>>>
>>> handler = FTPHandler
>>> handler.authorizer = authorizer
>>>
>>> server = FTPServer(("127.0.0.1", 21), handler)
>>> server.serve_forever()
[I 13-02-19 10:55:42] >>> starting FTP server on 127.0.0.1:21 <<<
[I 13-02-19 10:55:42] poller: <class 'pyftpdlib.ioloop.Epoll'>
[I 13-02-19 10:55:42] masquerade (NAT) address: None
[I 13-02-19 10:55:42] passive ports: None
[I 13-02-19 10:55:42] use sendfile(2): True
[I 13-02-19 10:55:45] 127.0.0.1:34178-[] FTP session opened (connect)
[I 13-02-19 10:55:48] 127.0.0.1:34178-[user] USER 'user' logged in.
[I 13-02-19 10:56:27] 127.0.0.1:34179-[user] RETR /home/giampaolo/.vimrc completed=1 bytes=1700 seconds=0.001
[I 13-02-19 10:56:39] 127.0.0.1:34179-[user] FTP session closed (disconnect).A lot of time and effort went into making pyftpdlib as it is right now. If you feel pyftpdlib is useful to you or your business and want to support its future development please consider donating me (Giampaolo Rodola') some money. I only ask for a small donation, but of course I appreciate any amount.
Don't want to donate money? Then maybe you could write me a recommendation on Linkedin. In case you're using pyftpdlib into a software of yours mail me and I'll add your software to the adoptions list.
- 2018-05-04: version 1.5.4 released.
- 2017-11-04: version 1.5.3 released.
- 2017-04-06: version 1.5.2 released.
- 2016-05-02: version 1.5.1 released.
- 2015-12-13: version 1.5.0 released.
- 2014-06-03: version 1.4.0 released.
- 2014-04-12: version 1.3.1 released.
- 2013-11-07: version 1.3.0 released.
- 2013-04-22: version 1.2.0 released.
- 2013-04-09: version 1.1.0 released.
- 2013-02-22: version 1.0.1 released.
- 2013-02-19: version 1.0.0 released.
- 2012-05-14: pyftpdlib included in ftp-cloudfs project.
- 2012-01-25: version 0.7.0 released.
- 2011-12-01: pyftpdlib included in feitp-server project.
- 2011-09-26: pyftpdlib included in ftpmaster project.
- 2011-07-09: pyftpdlib included in bftpd project.
- 2011-07-09: pyftpdlib included in fastersync project.
- 2011-01-31: pyftpdlib included in put.io FTP connector project.
- 2011-01-24: version 0.6.0 released.
- 2010-12-14: added donations.
- 2010-08-24: pyftpdlib included in peerscape project.
- 2010-07-15: pyftpdlib included in Faetus project.
- 2010-07-11: pyftpdlib included in Pyfilesystem project.
- 2010-06-28: pyftpdlib has been packaged for Debian
- 2010-04-28: pyftpdlib included in sierramodulepos project.
- 2010-03-20: http://www.smartfile.com uses pyftpdlib.
- 2010-01-13: pyftpdlib included in zenftp project.
- 2009-12-26: pyftpdlib included in Symbian Python FTP server project.
- 2009-11-04: www.netplay.it uses pyftpdlib.
- 2009-11-04: www.adcast.tv uses pyftpdlib.
- 2009-11-04: www.bitsontherun.com uses pyftpdlib.
- 2009-11-02: pyftpdlib included in ftp-cloudfs project.
- 2009-09-14: version 0.5.2 released.
- 2009-08-10: pyftpdlib included in Imgserve project.
- 2009-07-22: pyftpdlib included in Plumi project.
- 2009-04-02: pyftpdlib RPM-packaged and ported on Fedora to make users can easily install on it via yum install pyftpdlib.
- 2009-03-28: pyftpdlib included in Bazaar project.
- 2009-02-23: pyftpdlib included in ShareFTP project.
- 2009-01-21: version 0.5.1 released.
- 2008-12-27: pyftpdlib included in Google Chromium, the open source project behind Google Chrome.
- 2008-12-27: pyftpdlib ported on GNU Darwin systems to make users can easily install on it.
- 2008-11-26: pyftpdlib included in OpenERP.
- 2008-10-26: pyftpdlib included in Python for OpenVMS as standard package.
- 2008-10-09: pyftpdlib included in Shareme project.
- 2008-09-20: version 0.5.0 released.
- 2008-08-10: pyftpdlib included in Manent project.
- 2008-05-16: version 0.4.0 released.
- 2008-04-09: pyftpdlib used as backend for gpftpd, an FTP server for managing files hosted on Google Pages.
- 2008-01-17: version 0.3.0 released.
- 2007-10-14: pyftpdlib included in Aksy project.
- 2007-09-17: version 0.2.0 released.
- 2007-09-08: pyftpdlib included as FarManager plug-in.
- 2007-03-06: pyftpdlib ported on FreeBSD systems to make users can easily install on it.
- 2007-03-07: version 0.1.1 released.
- 2007-02-26: version 0.1.0 released.
- 2006-09-26: initial clunky thread-based progenitor link.
Some famous trademarks which adopted pyftpdlib (complete list).
