Shared Unix: Adding an FTP User

Adding FTP Users

For Value and higher accounts, you have the ability to manage FTP users via your FTP Manager control panel application within WebSiteOS. FTP users are restricted to whichever directories you limit them to and can upload and download content from those directories or any sub-directories below them.

1. Decide if you are creating an FTP user who will have access to edit content to your web site or if you a creating one that will be for file transfer use only.

   Using your FTP program or the File Manager WebSiteOS application, create a directory for your FTP user if one has not already been created. Here are the types of things to think about when deciding which directories a user should have access to:

   • public - This is the directory where all your web content lives. Give an FTP user access to this directory or a particular folder beneath it if you want them to have the ability to edit part or all of your web content. Whichever folder you specify, the user will have access to that folder and all beneath it.

   • private - This is the directory where you would create a file transfer only user that would not have access to edit web content. If you plan to have multiple FTP users, we recommend creating a users sub-directory with a directory for each individual user underneath that. Accounts migrated from a previous server will already have a users directory with sub-directories for each of their previously defined users.

   • cgi-bin - This is the directory where cgi scripts are generally stored, though if your account was migrated from a previous server, we've enabled cgi scripts to run in public also.

   The only way for the same FTP user to have access to both cgi-bin and public is if they are logging in with the main username/password for your account (the same one you login to WebSiteOS with). To give a user this level of access without giving them access to WebSiteOS, you would need to create two separate FTP user accounts: one which gives them access to public and one which gives access to cgi-bin.

2. Follow the instructions to login to your WebSiteOS.

3. Click on the Security section of the upper left navigation section:

   

4. Click on FTP Manager:

   

5. If not already selected, click on the Directory FTP tab:

   

6. Click on the Create button.

7. You must then type in a Username, a Password and select from the list on the right the directory to which the user will have access. The user in this example will only be allowed to transfer files, not edit web content, so it has been created in the directory /private/users/username. The directory selected must already exist:

   

8. Click Apply and then OK.

9. Click the X in the upper right corner of the FTP manager to close the application. Next time you log in to FTP Manager the user(s) you created will appear in a list on the left side of the screen. To see the settings for that user, highlight their username on the left:

   

10. Be sure to logout when done using your WebSiteOS. If you do not logout, but close the web browser window instead, you will experience strange problems if you later try and log back in for this or another domain. Always logout when finished using WebSiteOS.

How users connect via FTP

1. In their FTP software, they specify the following:

   • Hostname: ftp.yourdomain.com
     Substitute your domain here.
   • Username: username.yourdomain.com
     Replace username with the username you created for them and substitute yourdomain.com with your actual domain name. In the example above the username would be abc.hahnmeyerphotos.org.
   • Password:
     password you assigned to them.
   • Passive Mode should be enabled in their FTP software.

    

2. Once connected they have full permissions to both upload and download files but can see only the directory you've associated with their account and all sub-directories below that.