Linux FTP User administration

[andnos]

Hello, I've had great help here before and hopefully I can get some direction for my dilemma here:

Issue: I need to create about 30 students (these are generic user accounts with R/W access) and 1 teacher on a linux server. I need to give them FTP access only, and each one will need a directory that'll be available from the web also, something like domain.com/class/user01/ . I'm not really sure on the best approach to this. Any help would be appreciated.

Server set up:

Linux Ubuntu Server 6.06.1
FTP Server is: vsftpd
Running everything else that is standard, and I have full control of the box so I can make any changes. If you need to know more details, let me know.

Any help appreciated,

Andy

 

[RhythmAce]

The easiest way is to create linux user accounts for each of them. When you add a new user to your system you'll assign a username/password and a home directory is automatically created. When they login, this is the directory they will be taken to. To access these directories from the web using a web browser, you can use apache and setup a UserDir. Then each user can access their site with

http://www.domain.com/~username.

If they don't have html pages there, a directory listing will be displayed.

 

[sleipnir214]

What kind of access will the teacher need to the student directories?



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions! TANSTAAFL!

 

[IPGuru]

Creat a group "Teacher"
place all of the Teachers in this group

add read/wrigth permisions for this group to all of the students

 

[QatQat]

In cases like this using linux users' homes and group permissions can lead to problems in write acces for the teacher user's account; especially if yo udo not set umaks properly you may find that users will create files that the teacher cannot edit.

I am not suggesting that it can't be done; just saying that you may want to consider editing your ftp server's config files and create a new ftp root, which has nothing to do with the user's homes and assign normal users and group rights to the new set of directories in the newly created root.

CHeers

QatQat

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

 

[andnos]

Thanks for all of the feedback.

I went ahead and used the proftpd-mysql server, and this tutorial:

http://www.howtoforge.com/proftpd_mysql_virtual_hosting