I'm trying to set up a ftp/http server on Red Hat 9. I was able to get the http part working fine, but I'm running into some problems with ftp. Let me tell you what I've done.

First I enabled vsftpd. I had assumed that there would be something that would allow me to set up ftp accounts, but after searching I haven't been able to find anything to configure the ftp. So I thought that maybe I had to log in via my linux account. I tried it and it worked. The problem was that the ftp home directory was my home directory. I want the ftp home to be the same as the http home, so I changed my linux home to match the http home. This works fine with two exceptions.
1. There's a desktop directory in my http/ftp directory that I don't really want there.
2. There's nothing stopping me from accessing the parent directories through ftp.

To solve the first problem I tried creating a test account without a home directory, then assigning it one afterward. I logged into ftp successfully and there was no desktop. Then I tried logging in locally (which I'd like to be able to do also) and it created the desktop directory. I thought that maybe I could just hide the directory, but I have no clue how to do that.

For problem #2 I tried denying access to the parent directory. Logged in via ftp and I wasn't able to access the parent (good). Logged in locally and everything worked (good). Then I tried to access with http and I had no access to anything (bad). I have no clue what to do about this.

Ok, so here are my questions.
1. Am I even doing this right in the first place? If not, how should I be doing it?
2. Assuming that I'm on the right track, how do I get rid of (or at least hide) the desktop directory?
2b. If hiding the directory is not the answer, how would I hide a file/directory?
3. How do I restrict ftp access without totally blocking http access?

look in /etc/vsftp/ for a vsftp.conf file. this will be the file that you need to edit to make vsftp to work the way you need. also when you are done configing it you will have to mv it to /etc/. i have read in another part of the LQ site that it needs to be there for it to work properly.

ref::
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...003/08/4/61817

Thanks joesbox! That explains a lot of things.
I didn't see any answer's to my original questions in the file though.

I still want to know how I can get rid of/hide the desktop directory and how to keep ftp users from moving up through the parent directory.

i think that within the vsftp.conf (which is supposed to be very well documented) there is an access restriction type section. i am not sure since i only started working on RH9 at work and have not gotten to the ftp portion but i think that a lot of your answers there about the parent dir.
as far as the desktop dir you can change the permissions (chmod) to 700 and only allow the owner full access and chown the folder to a user that doesn't have ftp access.

Well you do not require to chmod it to a user not having ftp access and also you can still move out of the initial root directory if you do not chroot the user to it.

For a tutorial check out:
http://www.markus-welsch.de/linux/services/ftp.html