Topic: admin access to user folders

[stocky]

Hi everyone. I have an SME server and have created all the users etc, and when i access the SME box from a windows machine, I log on and it shows me the "primary" folder and also relevant "username" folder as I would expect. BUT, when i log in as ADMIN i only get "primary" and "admin" folders and ACCESS DENIED to all the user folders (cant see them either!). How do I allow ADMIN to see and access ALL user folders? Same happens if I FTP in, i can access the admin folder, but get PERMISSION DENIED on all the user folders. I need access to these as ADMIN for maintenance etc. Any assistance greatly appriciated!
 

[Mumm-Ra]

If you check the permissions for the individual users folder you'll see that only the owner has permission for the folder, the owner being the user in question.
The permissions are there for the purposes of security.
If you need access into these folder you could always SSH into your server as root

[stocky]

so can i give admin root permissions?
I need admin to have EASY (eg not SSH) access to user folders from windows explorer

[Mumm-Ra]

There is a way but it's probably not the correct way of doing this and could break your server

You can change the group permission on your users folder to admin (or any other user/group) by typing at a command prompt

Code: [Select]

chown -R <username of user>:<username/groupname of user/group to be given permission> foldername
for example i've just created a test user so I connected to my server by SSH and typed

Code: [Select]

cd /home/e-smith/files/users
chown -R test:admin test
You then need to give the group permission read/write & possible execute

Code: [Select]

chmod -R 770 test
If I now type ls -l I can see that for my test user's folder test is still the owner, admin is the group, test still has w/r/e permissions and admin also has w/r/e permissions.
If I now type \\<servername>\test I can see test user's files, create files in test's folder, delete files and move files.

Again I don't know what else this will do to permissions so I would test this until you are sure that it hasn't broken something else. i.e email, user backups, password changes e.t.c

[stocky]

So if I create a number of groups and run that command for each group, i should then be able to access them. Cool! I will give it a bash  

[Mumm-Ra]

The best way to do this would be to create a group and put the admin user in it.
Then set this group to be the group against your users folders.
If you would then like to add another user into this group you can do.

Again, this may screw up your system so test fully!

[wallyrp]

Good Morning,

This thread may address your issue:

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=21251.0

I haven't tried it yet but it appears that it should work. Let me know if this helps.

[Mumm-Ra]

definitely the correct way!

[stocky]

Worked Great!
only prob is that is shows the contents of the user folder including the mail folders and home folder, not just the contents of the home folder, but we can work with that.

This is the code i added to my smb.conf so if anyone as any ideas to get it to go direct to the users "home" dir and not show the mail folders.....

Code: [Select]


[admin_shares]
comment = home_directories
path = /home/e-smith/files/users/
valid users = admin root *your_user_name
admin users = admin root *your_username
write list = admin root *your_user_name
public = no
browsable = yes
writable = yes


I also want to make a "public" folder for all users to access....no logon or PW required. How do I go about doing this?

I tried making a public folder like an ibay. I created a dir and then used this code....

Code: [Select]


[public]
comment = Public i-bay
path = /home/e-smith/files/ibays/Public
read only = no
writable = yes
printable = no
inherit permissions = yes
create mode = 0640


I can see the folder but it denies my access to creat files or folders

Help for newbies appriciated!

[stocky]

amazing what things you can do with the chmod command.

[mbachmann]

Look at chmod, chgrp and chown. If you click on "modify"  in server-manager panel "Information bays" it should let you set permissions for groups as well.