Hello all...

I´d like to know if this is possible. I´d like to serve FTP (through vsftpd) with several users (between 5 and 10). But the plot is that I don´t need them to be system users. I´d like to create a list of possible ftp, and ftp only, users.

I want them to be only ftp users. For example they can´t login through the terminal, because they won´t have a user account. I just want them to login through the ftp service, have a password assigned to them, and have a folder with write and read permisions. And I want them to be jailed in the /var/ftp folder. They can´t go to /var, for exmaple.

Hope you can help me...
Thanks in advance.

for the list of user account, don't matter.
Just add user to the system, normaly, but make their uniq and default shell /usr/bin/ftp (at the end of the line which correcpond to them in the /etc/passwd).

To put them in a jail, "chroot" the directory :
put the tree they need and the program they need to be ftp client in the directory you prepare for ftp.
"chroot" these directory and when the user connect to the system (localy or remotely) they get a ftp prompt.
They connect to, and they fall in their root' directory (/ for them, /YOURPATH/ for real), with just a shell for ftp.
More information are discusses however on how to make it, but i just can put you in the right direction.

I posted wondering about the same thing ( http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=379667 ) and basically determined that the easiest way to do it was to setup the user on the system with no shell and set their homedir as the /ftp dir, then chroot them in vsftpd.

Someone did mention that you *might* be able to do it with pam but I wasn't able to find anything on it. It eneded up being just easier for me to add the user, assign them to /sbin/nologin and make their home dir /ftp

What would be the command line to chroot a directory?

There may be a command line way to do it, but I did it within vsftpd. Since I didn't want to be put in the chroot jail, I ignored the chroot_local_users option and instead used:

chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list

Then I edited the vsftpd.chroot_list (or create if you don't have it) and listed each local user I wanted to be chrooted. VSFTP will automatically lock them into their home directory, and if you set their homedir to be whatever dif you want the ftp users to be put in, it'll send them there and show the path as /