I posted this in the networking area by mistake.

I help look after a FreeBSD web server that is hosted NTT Europe Online. Recently I have had problems with ftping certain accounts. I have set the permissions for the directory to Group1 for group rwx, and Owner1 for owner rwx and have a user (User1) who is a member of Group1.

When I look in /etc/group User1 is confirmed to be a member of Group1. When I then try to ftp to this area I get told access denied. If I change the other permissions to rwx I still get told the same thing.

When I run the "id" and "groups" commands for User1, they do not show me all the groups that User1 belongs to. This includes Group1 missing from their output.

If I change the group ownership from Group1 to User1 then I am able to ftp. I don't want to have to do this as other users will soon be setup to access this area an will have the same problems.

Firstly, what do the "id" and "groups" commands look at to determine the groups that a user belongs to and secondly any ideas on how I might be able to fix this so that multiple users can ftp into a directory with them as members of a group?

Regards,

Vicky

did you log off and log back on as User1? Account changes don't take effect until you log off and log back in.

What FTP are you using? vsftp?

I have tried logging on using both windows based ftp programs (Dreamweaver and command line ftp) and linux based ftp programs (Kbear sftp and command line ftp).

The change to User1 was done through ssh and then a login afterwards with ftp. NTT's answer was to change the group name to User1 and couldn't understand why it wouldn't work with Group1 as the group name. They changed their servers recently and it was working ok before then. So far their support hasn't been any help which is why I am lookiing for help here.

no idea what NTT is. This FTP server is managed by a remote host? How much access do you have on it? You might need to change the FTP configuration settings, or, directory permissions.

NTT Online are a hosting company. The server is a Virtual Private Server (VPS) that I rent from them. I have access as root user to that VPS area so can change most things. The strange thing is is that it all worked until NTT Online changed their own server and hence the IP address of our VPS.

I have been able to ftp other areas of the VPS so am not sure that changing the ftp configuration is the answer unless it is directory/user specific. I have also tried changing directory permissions to 777 but this made no difference.

So what FTP program are they running (or did you install)? Vsftp? what distro is it running? Is SELinux enabled? Did you check the FTP configuration settings?

You seem to avoid my questions, so if you don't answer them this time then no more help for you. This thread is kind of going like this:

911:"Emergency. how can I help?"
You:"I've just been shot!"
911:"Where are you?"
You:"it was a gun."
911:"Okay, where can I send the ambulance to?"
You:"the shooter ran off 3rd St."
911:"I'll send the police that way, but where can I send the ambulace to help you."
You:"I'm hit in the leg."
911:*hangs up*

The server already had ftp installed when I first started using it. I don't know what version of ftp it is and am away at the moment so won't be able to find out until the weekend. The nix distro is FreeBSD (again can't confirm version). I will check the ftp settings when I get back and let you know.