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Creating & Editing FTP/SFTP Users

  • Applies to: Shared Hosting
    • Difficulty: Easy
    • Time Needed: 10
    • Tools Required: Account Center access
  • Applies to: Grid
    • Difficulty: Easy
    • Time Needed: 10
    • Tools Required: Account Center access
  • Applies to: Legacy DV & VPS Hosting
    • Difficulty: Easy
    • Time Needed: 10
    • Tools Required: Plesk administrator access or root access, SSH, vi knowledge
  • Applies to: VPS Hosting
    • Difficulty: Easy
    • Time Needed: 10
    • Tools Required: Plesk administrator access or root access, SSH, vi knowledge

Instructions

    1. Log into your Media Temple Account.
    2. Click the blue ADMIN button associated with your Shared Hosting server.
      blue-admin-cp.png
    3. In the upper-left corner of the account Dashboard, select FTP Manager.
      ftp-1.png
    4. In the cPanel FTP Accounts page, complete these fields:
      ftp-2.png
      • Log in: The first part of your username. The full username includes @[your account's primary domain name]. So if your primary domain is coolexample.com, and you enter ftpuser, then the full username for FTP will be ftpuser@coolexample.com.
      • Password: The password for this FTP user.
      • Directory: The directory this user can access. To give this user access to the entire account, enter nothing but a forward slash (/).
      • Quota: Total size of the files (in MB) this user can upload to that directory. Select Unlimited for no limit. Existing files in a directory count towards the quota.
      • Click Create FTP Account.

Editing Existing Users

Scroll down to the FTP Accounts section and select an option under the Actions section:

cp-1.png

  • Change Password: Update the password for this FTP user.
  • Change Quota: Update the quota for this FTP user (MB).
  • Delete: Remove this user.

    WARNING:
    We recommend leaving Delete the User’s Home Directory unchecked, unless you are certain there is no desired data in the user directory.
    shared-delete_ftp-01.png

  • Configure FTP Client: View the manual settings or download a configuration file for FTP clients. We also recommend reading our article on third-party FTP applications here.

Resources

Overview

This article shows you how to add FTP users to your server. You have the ability to grant custom access to each user. These users can also have SSH and SFTP access, but only to their own home folders.

Instructions

1. Sign into the Account Center.

2. Depending on when your Grid server was provisioned, you will either select Add/Edit Users from the Server Settings panel or for legacy Grid servers, select Add/Edit FTP & SSH Users. Only one of the options will be available. The rest of the instructions will be the same regardless of which option was available. 


Older Grid servers may not see the option above and will instead select Add/Edit FTP & SSH Users:

ftp_serverguide.png

 


Then click on  in the top right corner.
  • If editing an existing user, click the edit icon.

     

3. Fill out the form for the new user. Use the drop down menu to the right of the username to assign the new user to either a particular domain or all domains. 

 

4. Give the user SSH and/or FTP access using the check boxes. SSH (Secure Shell) is for general administration. FTP/SFTP is specifically for uploading and downloading data. For more information, refer to these helpful resources, or contact our 24/7 support. 

  • SSH will only give the new user access to their home directory. 
  • FTP has the following access controls to choose from:

    • /users/username - This option grants the most restricted FTP access, limited to the user's home folder. This is useful if someone just needs a personal storage location. This option also grants access to the email files for that user, which are stored in a folder called Maildir. Be careful about changing files in the Maildir folder.
    • /domains/ - This option grants access to all of your domains.
    • /domains/ with dropdown - This option grants access to a specific domain, chosen from the dropdown menu.
    • custom - You can grant access to any existing folder on the server with this option. It can be very permissive (example: / grants the same access as the main user) or very restrictive (example: /domains/example.com/html/subfolder/ grants access to a limited folder).
      • If you get the error: "The directory that you have set for your FTP user does not exist", this means you need to add the folder first. You can do this with the main FTP user, or through the File Manager.
  • Decide whether you also want to grant SSH/SFTP access. SSH is command line access. SFTP is Secure FTP. Both of these options work for ONLY the user's home directory. The main user, serveradmin, is the only SSH/SFTP user available for general server use. If you do want to grant access, select the Enable SSH access option.

     

    NOTE:

    The main user, serveradmin, is the only SSH/SFTP user available for general server use. 

    Here's how your user will connect to your Grid via SSH:

    • Username: username@example.com
    • Password: user password that you assigned.
    • SSH login syntax (Terminal on Mac):
      • (Note that the username uses % rather than @. @ is used right before the server name, which can be your domain or your access domain.)
    ssh username%example.com

    For more information, please see: Connecting via SSH to your server.

  • Click UPDATE USER at the bottom.
     

That's it! You should be able to log into the server with this user with any standard FTP client or terminal program. 

FTP user limit

You can create up to 1000 FTP users on the Grid.

Resources

Overview

This guide will help you create additional FTP users on your DV. You will find instructions below for both the cPanel and Plesk interfaces.

cPanel

When a new cPanel account is created in WHM, an FTP user is created for the account. However, you may also create additional FTP users once you have logged int cPanel. This guide will take you through the steps to add additional FTP users.
  1. Log into cPanel for your domain.
  2. Click on FTP Accounts in the Files section of the panel.

    cp1.png

  3. Next, choose a username, password, directory, and quota for this FTP user. Once this is done, click the Create FTP Account button.
     cp2.png
  4. You're done setting up your new user!

Plesk

Add a New User

Plesk allows you to enable SSH for the main FTP user for each domain. The first section explains how to do this. The second section shows you how to create additional SSH users for any subfolder under a particular domain, or a high-level SSH user.

TIP:

These screenshots are for DV 4.0 and Plesk 11. If you are on DV 4.0 and are running Plesk 10.x, please see this article for upgrade information: How do I upgrade Plesk?

  1. Log into the Plesk Control Panel for your domain.
  2. From the Home page, click on Domains. Then click on the desired domain.

    plesk1.png
     

  3. Next, click on FTP Access.

    plesk23.png

  4. Click on Add an FTP Account.
    plesk4.png

  5. Enter a username, custom home directory, and password. Then click OK.

    plesk5.png

    • FTP account name: This is the FTP username.
    • Home directory: Click on the folder to navigate to the desired directory, or leave it with just / to grant access to all domains in that subscription.
    • Password: This will be your FTP password. Please choose a strong password.
  6. You're done setting up your new user! Your FTP username and password will now work.

Edit an existing user

Follow steps 1-3 above to get to your list of FTP users. To edit the details for an existing user, click the user's name to edit.
plesk6.png
 

Enable SFTP

To enable SFTP, you'll have to enable SSH access for the primary FTP user for this subscription. SFTP is available only for the primary user.

  1. Click on your FTP user as shown above.
  2. Next, select /bin/bash (chrooted) from the dropdown menu (unless you want a different kind of SSH access).
  3. Finally, click OK. 

If the SSH option is grayed out, complete one of the following.

  • Log into Plesk with your admin user and then warp to the Control Panel, where you will now be able to edit this setting.
  • Enable the option for a customer to set SSH access for a user within the subscription settings for that domain (see Create your subscription to access your settings - click on the subscription, then go to Customize, then Permissions).

TIP:

Your primary FTP user also allows you to view your IP address and your current SSL Certificate. You can also set a disk space limit for the subscription.

  • Your IP address is a great way to access your server if your domain doesn't point here yet.
  • For more details on using this tool to create an SSH user, see the section below: Command-line method to add a new user.

Command-line method to add a new user

You can create a Linux user with fully customized access to your server via command line.

In the first example, you will create an additional user on your server with SSH and FTP access. This user will have access to a subfolder in one of your domains. The main point of this is to create a sub-SSH user. If you just need an FTP user, just follow the above instructions.

In the second example, you will make an SSH user with higher-level access. It is not recommended to make an FTP user with a higher level of access, because then you will run into permissions issues with uploaded files.

CAUTION:

This article shows you how to modify high-level configuration files on your server. Please consider making a backup of your DV server before making the changes shown in this article, or at least back up your /etc/passwd file. (mt) Media Temple does not support modifying your default server configuration.

Instructions for FTP/SSH user

  1. Log into your server via SSH or FTP as the main FTP/domain user. In this example, the main domain user will be called "alpha."
  2. Create the desired home directory for your new FTP user. In this example, the directory for the new user will be example.com/httpdocs/beta_directory.
  3. Log into your server via SSH as the root user.
  4. Check your /etc/passwd file for the user ID (UID) of your main domain user. alpha is used as an example. 
    
egrep "alpha" /etc/passwd

    This will return a line like this.

    
alpha:x:10001:2524::/var/www/vhosts/example.com:/bin/false

    The UID is the number after the x. We will be using this UID in the next step. In our example, the UID is 10001.  So, when you write the below command, the UID you type out must match what came up in the /etc/passwd search results above.  i.e. If the UID is 10000, then use 10000.  If it is 15000, then use 15000.

  5. Run the following command to create the new user. The new user in this example is called beta.  Remember to match the UID. 
    
useradd -d /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/beta_directory/ -ou 10001 -g psacln -s /bin/bash beta

    You should see output similar to the following.

    
useradd: warning: the home directory already exists.
Not copying any file from skel directory into it.

    Notes on this command.

    • -d designates the home directory for the new user. It should be the directory to which you want to grant FTP access.
    • -ou designates that the UID for the new user will NOT be unique, and then specifies the UID. You should replace 10001 with the UID from your /etc/passwd file in Step 4.
    • -g specifies the group for the new user. psacln is correct for all DV servers with Plesk.
    • -s describes the type of SSH access. /bin/false disables SSH access. Use /bin/bash or any other desired shell if you want to grant SSH access.
  6. Set a password for your new user. 
    
passwd beta

    You will be prompted with the following.

    
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:

    Type in your new password twice. You will not see your cursor moving. You should get the following output.

    
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

That's it! You can now log into FTP and SSH with your new user. When you create or upload files with this user, they will belong to the main domain user ("alpha" in the example), so you will not run into any permissions problems. This user will also be limited in access to their home directory.

Instructions for High-Level SSH user

This example will create an SSH user with access to the /var/www/vhosts/ directory, which is where all of your website files are kept.

  1. Log into your server as root or a sudo user via SSH.
  2. Run the following command to create a user called beta. 
    
useradd -d /var/www/vhosts/ -s /bin/bash beta

    You should see output similar to the following.

    
useradd: warning: the home directory already exists.
Not copying any file from skel directory into it.

    Notes on this command.

    • -d designates the home directory for the new user. It should be the directory to which you want to grant SSH access.
    • -s describes the type of SSH access. /bin/false disables SSH access. Use /bin/bash or any other desired shell if you want to grant SSH access.
  3. Set a password for your new user. 
    
passwd beta

    You will be prompted with the following.

    
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:

    Type in your new password twice. You will not see your cursor moving. You should get the following output.

    
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

You will now be able to log into your server via SSH with your new username and password. You will be placed in /var/www/vhosts/ by default.

Modify User

The usermod command allows you to change basic settings for any user. It is very similar to the useradd command shown above, except that it changes settings instead of setting them for the first time. For example, you can use this command to modify the user's home directory.


usermod -d /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/new_directory/ beta
  • For more information on usermod, you might want to check the documentation at die.net.

Delete User

If you want to delete one of the users you have created, you can execute the following command in SSH.


userdel olduser

You should replace olduser with the name of the user you want to delete. If you want to also remove that user's home directory and all its contents, execute this command.


userdel -r olduser

CAUTION:

Do not use this to remove users that you (or another human) did not create. If you accidentally delete a system user, your server will not work properly and you may need to revert to default.

  • Some basic information on userdel from die.net.
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