How to Restrict a User's Access Using SFTP?

[Mark Phillips]

Eric,

vsftp is in the Debian repositories, but the developer's tool does not use
it...only sftp or ftp. The program is iWeb on the mac.

However, the article http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/590 did
the trick for me!

Mark

On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Eric Shubert <ejs at shubes.net> wrote:

> Oops. Sorry Mark. I forgot that you said sftp, which is part of OpenSSH.
> I'm using vsftp, which does not require a login shell. Probably why it's
> considered "very secure". ;) I expect that if vsftp is in a debian repo,
> you could use that instead of sftp. vsftpd is stock in the RHEL repos.
>
>
> On 12/29/2011 08:04 AM, Mark Phillips wrote:
>
>> Eric,
>>
>> The Debian equivalent to /sbin/nologin appears to be /bin/false. When I
>> tried that, I could not sftp or ssh or gain access to the machine in
>> anyway. I am not sure if there is another Debian shell that allows sftp
>> but not ssh.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Eric Shubert <ejs at shubes.net
>> <mailto:ejs at shubes.net>> wrote:
>>
>>    That should be ok.
>>
>>    Be sure you have your ftp server configured such that they cannot
>>    access folders above/across their home folder. File permissions may
>>    handle this, but probably will not (many things are world readable).
>>
>>    Also, be sure that they cannot login to a command prompt by setting
>>    their login shell to /sbin/nologin (might vary with distro). This is
>>    commonly done for service accounts (apache, etc).
>>
>>
>>    On 12/28/2011 03:38 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
>>
>>        Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Based on some
>> constraints,
>>        your advice, some googling, I arrived at this set-up, but I am
>>        not sure
>>        how secure it is.
>>
>>        1. The web creation software (iWeb on a Mac) only supports ftp
>>        and sftp
>>        to upload a site.
>>        2. iWeb does not support the use of "versions" for the web pages.
>> By
>>        that I mean iWeb is strictly one way - create a site and publish
>>        it. It
>>        cannot import an iWeb site, it has to start at the beginning.
>>        One can
>>        create a site and publish it, then edit the site, and publish
>>        again, but
>>        it cannot import or use a previous version of the site as a
>> starting
>>        point. (I mention this because Eric suggested using git, which
>>        sounded
>>        like a great idea, but alas
>>
>>        I have this setup, but I could use some advice on how to make it
>>        more
>>        secure....
>>
>>        1. User account fred
>>        2. fred's home is /var/www/domain/fred
>>        3. /var/www/domain/fred has owner:group fred:fred
>>        4. Document root is /var/www/domain/fred
>>
>>        Thanks,
>>
>>        Mark
>>
>>        On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 10:26 AM, Eric Shubert <ejs at shubes.net
>>        <mailto:ejs at shubes.net>
>>        <mailto:ejs at shubes.net <mailto:ejs at shubes.net>>> wrote:
>>
>>            On 12/27/2011 10:46 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
>>
>>                I need to give a user access to my web server via sftp
>>        to upload web
>>                site changes. What is the best way to do this? I have
>>        several other
>>                sites on the same server, so I want to prevent them or
>>        anyone
>>                else who
>>                gains access to their account from being able to make
>>        changes to
>>                those
>>                sites or other parts of the server.
>>
>>                Thanks,
>>
>>                Mark
>>
>>
>>            I use vsftp, which can be configured to allow users access
>>        only to
>>            their web site's tree. sftp might be able to do the same.
>>
>>            Then, create their user such that their home directory is
>>        their web
>>            site's directory, and they cannot log in to the system (only
>>        vsftp)
>>            with an /etc/passwd entry like this:
>>
>>          vsftpuser:x:511:511::/var/____**vhosts/domain.com/docs:/sbin/_**
>> ___nologin <http://domain.com/docs:/sbin/____nologin> <
>> http://domain.com/docs:/sbin/**__nologin<http://domain.com/docs:/sbin/__nologin>
>> >
>>        <http://domain.com/docs:/sbin/**__nologin<http://domain.com/docs:/sbin/__nologin>
>>
>>        <http://domain.com/docs:/sbin/**nologin<http://domain.com/docs:/sbin/nologin>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>            Files in their web site are owned by their user, with read
>>            permissions for 'other' (o+r), which allows apache (or nginx)
>> to
>>            read them.
>>
>>            --
>>            -Eric 'shubes'
>>
>>
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>>    --
>>    -Eric 'shubes'
>>
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>
> --
> -Eric 'shubes'
>
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