Topic: Yet another question about ftp access to ibays

[b2vn]

Hi all

I know I'm far from the first asking something like this. I have read some other questions in the forum about it, but none seems to help for me.

What I'm trying to do is very simple. I have a friend who just needs a website to play around on. How do i do that? How do I give one user access to the web site?

What I have done is
1) creating a user with a passcode, eg username and passcode
2) assigning that user to a group, eg groupname
3) creating a new ibay, eg named ibayname, and assigning it to the group groupname
4) set the passcode for the ibay eg. to ibaycode.

Shouldn't I bee able to access in from my browser by?:
ftp://ibayname:ibaycode@domain.com

I can't.

Why did I need to set up the user and the group ?
I can logon by:
ftp://username:passcode@domain.com
but this, of cause, will be to the users home directory.

Would it require the user to have access to /home/e-smith/files if I wanted to make a synlink from the users home dir to the ibays?

[raem]

b2vn

> I have read some other questions in the forum about it, but none seems to help for me.

I suggest you read more of the forum posts as your specific situation has been answered recently (ie within the last few months) more than once.

> ftp://ibayname:ibaycode@domain.com

This won't allow write access.


> How do i do that? How do I give one user access to the web site?

Read the sme6 or sme7 manual section on ibays very carefully as the following is clearly written there.

sme does not allow anonymous ftp write access to ibays.
You need to use a secure ftp client (sftp) (& not a regular browser) to login to sme as a valid user in order to have write access.
Then use the sftp client command line to cd to the ibay
cd /home/e-smith/files/ibay/ibayname/html
Then upload files.
Not all sftp clients will work, smartftp does, so try a different one if you have problems.
The above assumes of course that you have enabled ftp access in server manager remote access & for the ibay.

Also you then have the problem that users are not confined to their own folders etc, so you use the chroot contrib from dungog to limit their access to the server to only allowed areas.

[b2vn]

I had read (quite a lot of) the manual. Now I have read section 14 about ibays three time more.

I still didn't get it. I thought that
ftp://username:passcode@ibayname.domain
should have send the user to the ibay named ibayname.

But it is working now, chroot did the difference.

Thank you.

[raem]

b2vn

> I thought that
> ftp://username:passcode@ibayname.domain
> should have send the user to the ibay named ibayname.

No
You were using usernames & passwords rather than the ibayname & ibaypassword. Group access rights for users only apply to local filesharing (or VPN) access & not to anonymous Internet access, it even says that in the server manager ibay panel.

You would need to use the ibayname & ibaypassword, and if you use those, you will not have ftp write permission as sme does not allow that as it is considered anonymous. You will be able to download though, if ftp is enabled.


I think the manual is pretty clear on that, which part of the following did you not understand (especially the last paragraph, but perhaps you did not bother to read that far), as the developers want these types of misunderstandings reported to the bugtracker for documentation improvements.

From sme7 Draft manual Chp 14.2

accessing an i-bay via the FTP server: To access the i-bay using FTP, you use your FTP client to connect to your server and use the i-bay name as the login id. If the i-bay requires a password, you will need to enter the i-bay password as well.
If you are using a command-line or graphical FTP client, you will usually be prompted for the login username and password.
If you are using a web browser, you will need to enter a FTP URL. This will be in one of the following forms, depending on whether or not a password is required:
ftp:// ibayname @ftp. domainname
ftp:// ibayname : password @ftp. domainname

Warning
Be aware that FTP transmits all passwords in the clear without encryption and can therefore be a security risk. If you are concerned about security, we suggest you consider the scp “secure copy” command associated with ssh as an alternative to FTP.


Note that users accessing the i-bay via FTP in this manner are not able to upload files to the i-bay. They can only download files from the i-bay to their client.
It is possible to upload files using FTP, but to do so you must login to the server with a valid user name, not the i-bay name. That user account must be a member of the group that has been given write permission for the i-bay (configured on the i-bay screen).
You would then change to the i-bay directory (using the ftp command «cd ../../ibays/ibayname»).
You will now be able to upload files from your FTP client to the appropriate directories.