If hidden files (files that start with a dot like .htaccess, .bash_history, .profile or .ssh) are not displayed in your FTP client, then they are most likely disabled in the FTP server. To enable hidden files in pure-ftpd on Debian and Ubuntu Linux, execute this command:

echo "yes" > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/DisplayDotFiles

and then restart pureftpd.

The pure-ftp daemon by default has a recursion limit of 2000 files, this prevents the server from showing more then 2000 files when you browse a directory with a FTP client. To expand this Limit to e.g 5000 files, create or edit the file /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/LimitRecursion and add a line “5000 500″:

echo "5000 500" > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/LimitRecursion

and then restart pureftpd:

/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd-mysql restart

To turn on verbose logging (e.g. to debug FTP connection or authentication problems) in  pure-ftpd FTP server on Debian and Ubuntu Linux, execute the following command as root user in the shell:

echo 'yes' > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/VerboseLog

and then restart pure-ftpd

/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd-mysql restart

The debug output will be logged to syslog. To view the log content, execute:

tail -n 100 /var/log/syslog

To disable verbose logging, execute these commands:

rm -f /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/VerboseLog
/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd-mysql restart