Website and FTP Authors

The ability to have additional authors, or FTP users, for your website is very useful for a number of reasons:

authors can be restricted on a directory basis providing a level of accountability that can't be matched having multiple authors using one login/password
because the main FTP login and password also grants users access to the netConsole, assigning separate FTP user accounts for authors provides security

With the Authors section of your Unix-based netConsole, you can now easily administer additional FTP users or authors for your site.

Creating Authors

To create an additional website author, first provide the username for the author in the field labeled "Ftp name". Next, supply the password. Finally, specify author's home directory and click the create user button Add User

Note: When specifying a home directory for a user, you have to give the path to the directory as relative to your root directory. For example, tom's home directory is "news" which is located under webshare. If you had simply typed "news" then netConsole would have created the directory in the root - i.e. /news instead of /webshare/news.

Also, the home directory you specify for an FTP user does not have to exist. If the netConsole does not find it, it will create the directory for you.

Ftp name	Password (hidden)	Home directory

billy
tom

In the example above, there is already one author that exists, "tom". Another FTP user, "himee" is about to be created with SeCrEt as it's password and "/webshare" as it's home directory.

The "billy" user is not an author, but a mailbox. Mailboxes can be turned into authors by supplying home directory information and clicking the Mailbox to Author button

Deleting Authors

To delete an author click the delete button that appears on the same line as the account you want to delete.

If you delete an author that has been converted to a mailbox, the mailbox will not be deleted. All mailboxes must be deleted from the Mailboxes tab of the netConsole.

Passwords

To change the password for an author, remove the stars in the Password Box for that account, type in the new password, then click the Modify button to save the new password. The modification will take effect immediately.

Home Directories

To change the home directory for an author, remove the current home directory listed for that account and type in the home directory. Hit the Modify button and the change will take effect immediately.

Note: When specifying a home directory for an FTP user, you have to give the path to the it as relative to your root directory. For example, tom's home directory is "news" which is located under webshare. If you had simply typed "news" then netConsole would have created the directory in the root.

Also, the home directory you specify for an author does not have to exist. If the netConsole does not find it, it will create the directory for you.

Directory Permissions

Rarely you'll encounter a problem where an FTP user will not be able to upload or modify files. This is due to incorrect group permissions on the directory that's been set as their home directory. To repair this, you must grant user write permission. This is done via SSH/Telnet:

$ chmod -R 0775 directory(ies)
  - OR -
$ chmod -R g+w directory(ies)

Note: Some FTP clients also allow you to modify file/directory permissions. For more information on this, please see the IC Tech. Ref. Document: Understanding File Permissions