Multiple FTP users in Plesk 9
By now, Plesk is supposed to have built in support for creating multiple FTP users through the web interface, but it doesn’t seem to have materialised. So for the mean time, SSH is still the way forward:
Create ftp user with their own home directory:
# /usr/sbin/useradd -d $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location -s /bin/false USER_NAME
Set the ftp user’s password:
# passwd USER_NAME
Add user to group psacln:
# /usr/sbin/usermod -G psacln USER_NAME
Change folder permissions for home directory:
# chmod 755 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
Change ownership to user and group:
# chown USER_NAME:psacln $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
Set execute permission on the httpdocs folder for the domain:
# chmod 751 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/httpdocs
At this point you have a valid FTP user who can connect. But only to their own folder. Now I want users with FTP write access to httpdocs so I can give 3rd party support access on occasion and later revoke it without having to change my master password. Also, all their actions will be logged as their user, so we have a data trail in case of things going pear shaped. This is as far as Parallels' guide goes, so we have to do a couple more steps:
Set the user’s home directory to the webroot:
# /usr/sbin/usermod -d $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/httpdocs/ USER_NAME
Grant write permissions to the group on the webroot:
# chmod g+w $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/httpdocs/
And we are done!
Where $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D is your vhosts path (typically /var/www/vhosts on the CentOS 5 boxes I’ve used) and USER_NAME is your chosen… errr, wossitcalled…
‘/some/location’ should be a non public access directory, e.g. /var/www/vhosts/your_domain/web_users/USER_NAME
These intstructions are tested on CentOS 5 / Plesk 9. They should work for other *nix flavours, but as with everything on t'net, excercise caution, and on your own head be it.
