RE: [cobalt-users] FTP login

["Jolley, Carl" <Carl.Jolley@xxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Ward [mailto:mark.ward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 9:02 AM
To: cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cobalt-users] FTP login


is there a way of setting up a user so that when they login theyconnect to
the root of the actual web site instead of a user area. i.e. I would like a
user to be able to be automatically connected to eg:-

site7/web

rather than


site7/users/user1/web

This is because the box hosts many web sites with just 1 user and they want
to use win2k FTP browser which does not allow you to go up directories,
which means I have to copy the content for them after it has been uploaded.
----------------------------------

There are several ways to solve this problem. I will mention one way.
I'm certain other list members will mention other ways.

For the user involved, modify the home directory portion in their
/etc/passwd
entry. E.G. if the home directory portion of the entry for their account in
/etc/passwd looks like:

.......:/home/sites/site7/users/user1:/bin/bash......

change it to:

.........:/home/sites/site7/web:/bin/bash.......

But --------------- Should you ever deleted this user vis the GUI admin
interface
before you do so you MUST restore the home directory entry for tha user in
/etc/passwd.
If you do not, the enirire directory /home/sites/site7/web, i.e. all the web
site contnet
will be completely deleted also. There's an entry in the knowledgebase that
addresses
this topic. Also note that when you do this, since you are changing the
user's home
directory entry, the location of the mail directory tntry will also chnage
so access
to their old mail directory will have to be considered, i.e. before the
change it would
have been /home/sites/site7/users/user1/mail, after the change the old user
files and
directopries will remain but the new lowcation for their mail directory will
be in
their new home directory, i.e. /home/sites/site7/web/mail. The same
considerations would
apply to other home directory entries such as .profile, .procmailrc and
.bash_login.
This might, for example make you want to modify the correspond virtual web
server
section of the httpd.conf/access.conf to "hide" the mail directory, e.g.
prevent a
directory listing from being generated by an URL referencing the directory.