System details:

RHEL 4.5
openssh-3.9p1-8.RHEL4.20.src.rpm
vsftpd-2.0.1-6.el4.src.rpm

This is an FTP server, all users have been jailed to '/home/jail/home/$username', using Wolfgang Fuschlberger' script: http://www.fuschlberger.net/programs...p-chroot-jail/

The users connect via SFTP; however, they are able to cd up to '/home/jailed/' so I decided to also chroot them into their home directories, to prohibit them from cding up from '/home/jail/home/$username'.
Snippet of my /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf containing relevant directives regarding chroot:

chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_local_user=NO
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list

This is supposed to chroot users into their home. However I wasn't seeing any changes upon reloading the vsftpd daemon. I made the changes a few times and nothing ... things were still the same; although users were jailed, they were not being chrooted; they could still cd up to '/home/jail/'. Eventually I noticed, by pure accident, that I could still connect to the FTP server even when vsftpd was stopped!!
I was baffled!

I found this directive in my /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server

Question:
- Does it mean that openssh is directly handling SFTP connections?

I'll answer my own question
Had a change to do some testing last night on a non-production box, running CentOS, in which vsftpd wasn't even installed ...
... and yes, it still works without an FTP daemon.

So the question now is:
- How to enable chroot for users logging in via SFTP?

I was trying to set up vsftp in my Fedora 12 desktop and figured it wasn't easy anymore even after carefully reading and following the how-to step-by-step with this vsftpd.conf:
anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
local_umask=022
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
chroot_local_user=YES
chroot_list_enable=YES
listen=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=YES
tcp_wrappers=YES
passwd_chroot_enable=YES
pasv_max_port=1024
#local_root=/var/ftp/pub

and tried...:

[root@localhost ~]# ftp 127.0.0.1
Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1).
220 (vsFTPd 2.2.2)
Name (127.0.0.1:jimbo):
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
500 OOPS: cannot change directory:/home/jimbo
Login failed.

I never stopped looking via Google and found this trick by restarting vsftpd (as root: service vsftpd restart)...

getsebool -a | grep ftp

It RETURNS this...:

allow_ftpd_anon_write --> off
allow_ftpd_full_access --> off
allow_ftpd_use_cifs --> off
allow_ftpd_use_nfs --> off
ftp_home_dir --> off
ftpd_connect_db --> off
httpd_enable_ftp_server --> off
sftp_enable_homedirs --> off
sftpd_anon_write --> off
sftpd_full_access --> off
sftpd_write_ssh_home --> off
tftp_anon_write --> off

where "ftp_home_dir" says is "off"

So, I used setsebool...:

setsebool -P ftp_home_dir on

And viola, it finally works!

[root@localhost ~]# ftp 127.0.0.1
Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1).
220 (vsFTPd 2.2.2)
Name (127.0.0.1:jimbo):
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
230 Login successful.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> pwd
257 "/home/jimbo"

jnavar3:

Thanks for your post. I got that to work ok, never had your troubles since I had SE disabled. What I'm trying to do is chroot users while using SFTP, not FTP.
The problem is that when you connect via SFTP, vsftpd is NOT used at all, in fact, I found that it doesn't even need to be running. The ftp connection is 100% handled by OpenSSH, not VSFTP. Hence the problem: can't use configuration via /etc/vsftpd.conf to configure this.

Found this way of doing it, I have not tested it yet; it uses the "ChrootDirectory" directive in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/ope...irectories/229

jnavar3... voila for me, too! A puzzle solved. I need to learn SELinux.