vsftpd is a simple and secure FTP server, I hear. I've used it to set up an FTP server quickly. Rather than fighting with TLS and FTP, I just use SFTP now - it's much simpler.
You'll need to download and install vsftpd and openssh-server at least. Also, I usually use AllowUsers in my /etc/ssh/sshd_config to whitelist which users are allowed to ssh in like so:
Here are some useful Drupal scripts! The first is a script that will put your Drupal directory's UNIX file permissions back to a secure and useful state. The second is great if you have a production and a staging website. You often need to clone your production website back to production then change some configuration to make the staging website "development". This is pretty basic; for instance, I sometimes need to disable google analytics as well in this script. The third is basically a listing of the crucial Drupal 7 modules I install in every site I have.