Question About Setting Up A User

[jlandes]

Hello,

I just hired a designer, who is going to need to upload and download files from multiple sites on my server. How do you all handle this? She will not be a reseller, I'll be handling the site hosting. She will just be doing the design work. She also will not need to have access to DirectAdmin, as I'll handle the technical stuff for her and the customer, if the customer wishes.

How do some of you handle setting up accounts for this or do you just create an FTP account for each site? I'm not sure of the best way to handle this so she only has one account that gives her access to all the sites she needs to have access to.

What I thought about doing, and I wanted to get your thoughts as to whether this would work or not, is create a new user account and home directory in Linux. Then, in her home directory, create symbolic links to the public_html directories of each domain that she'll be working with. Would their be permissions issues if I do this?

Can anyone recommend any other ways? I would like to try and make it easier for her to maintain multiple sites. Thanks for your time.

 

[GranTW]

If the domains are owned by different users then the best way is to have multiple ftp accounts. If you use one account to access the domains she needs then the files will be uploaded under the wrong username and therefore not counted towards bandwidth.

eg. you make user test with access to multiple domains, all files will be uploaded as user test and not the user the domain belongs to.

Grant

 

[tlchost]

If the domains are owned by different users then the best way is to have multiple ftp accounts. If you use one account to access the domains she needs then the files will be uploaded under the wrong username and therefore not counted towards bandwidth.

eg. you make user test with access to multiple domains, all files will be uploaded as user test and not the user the domain belongs to.

Grant

Wouldn't it also be true that if the files were owned by test, then the
domain user(TheUser) wouldn't be able to modify, delete or overwrite them via ftp?

Thom

 

[jlandes]

I have a script that can change the owner of the files in a site's directory based on who really owns the site. So, changing the permissions after the designer uploads the files is an automatic process. However, I'm not sure of the permissions issues that would be involved for the designer. Since the designer has a different username, would she even be able to edit the files that are owned by another user. I'm guess not. Any suggestions on the best way to handle this? Creating a username and password for her for each site might get to be a pain.

 

[tlchost]

I have a script that can change the owner of the files in a site's directory based on who really owns the site. So, changing the permissions after the designer uploads the files is an automatic process. However, I'm not sure of the permissions issues that would be involved for the designer. Since the designer has a different username, would she even be able to edit the files that are owned by another user. I'm guess not. Any suggestions on the best way to handle this? Creating a username and password for her for each site might get to be a pain.

When you lemons...make lemonaide

If we can accept the primise that the "designer" will have an ongoing need to
update the site, as well as the site owner, it might be easier to create an ftp user that both the owner and the designere use....they both have access, can edit etc.

Seems to me that you could use your script, or modify it, to change all the file ownership to the designer.

So the designer quits and a new one comes on board....the site owner can simply change the designer password.

There has to be a hole in this logic....I can understand it

 

[nobaloney]

An ftp user created by a site user only has access as the username for that site, so s/he only has ftp access to sites owned by that user.

The only way I can see to do this is to create a user manually, through the shell, and then, also through the shell, by manipulating /etc/group manually, make that user a member of the group for each site user for which s/he needs to be able to manipulate the files.

Then, also through the shell, for every user:

# chmod -R g+w /home/USERNAME/

Anyone else see any other way to do this?

Jeff

 

[tlchost]

An ftp user created by a site user only has access as the username for that site, so s/he only has ftp access to sites owned by that user.

Yes....my suggestion only addressed one site....

The only way I can see to do this is to create a user manually, through the shell, and then, also through the shell, by manipulating /etc/group manually, make that user a member of the group for each site user for which s/he needs to be able to manipulate the files.

Then, also through the shell, for every user:

# chmod -R g+w /home/USERNAME/

Jeff

That should work....apparently it doesn't affect ownership....

So you could have files owned by either one of two users, but noth of them could write to the files?

For those of us that are shell challenged, what's the adduser command parameters to add the designer?

Would DA recognize this new user? Could the domain user use the control panel to manipulate settings for the designer?

Thanks

Thom

 

[jlandes]

http://www.linuxheadquarters.com/howto/basic/adduser.shtml

 

[nobaloney]

That should work....apparently it doesn't affect ownership....

If you still have a RaQ or BQ box, you'll notice the way they do ownership by default is similar to what I described.

So you could have files owned by either one of two users, but both of them could write to the files?

Unless I wrote something wrong, files owned by users could still be written by them.

For those of us that are shell challenged, what's the adduser command parameters to add the designer?

man adduser is your friend .

Would DA recognize this new user? Could the domain user use the control panel to manipulate settings for the designer?

No. There may be another way to do it, but I haven't studied it. Perhaps create the user through DA, and then change the configurations for the user manually.

Jeff