FTP user questions and your views on why stuff is how they are

Today I wanted to create a FTP only account for someone I know so I can let him login and grab some files from me.

I found I cannot natively do this in the virtualmin as FTP is only allowed under public_html area but I could work around it by creating a FTP user in virtualmin and remapping his home directory under the webmin ‘users and groups’ area.

Then I checked to see if I can give my FTP user a different quota to my main web user as I needed about 10gb and want to keep the web stuff at 2gb I had set, but I cannot do this as you cannot set a FTP users quota separately under the ‘Edit Users’ area as its set to ‘Same as admin’, all you have under ‘Quota and home directory settings’ is the home directory unless quota for extra users needs to be enabled separately from a default install.

I have googled and come across threads with replies from Andy back in 2008/2010/2012 where users have asked about FTP users having their own directories that went part of the websites files in public_html.

But I haven’t come across any response stating why the design decisions were made by virtualmin to have FTP this way and to not allow virtualmin users to create separate FTP directories.

I see allowing users to create special FTP only accounts and directories on servers as also important as many sites online do this is some way from hosting private downloads only on their FTP or companies with access only for staff.

In my case as a home user I need it to transfer files with someone online separately to my website outside and without putting all the files under public_html which is a risk for the htaccess being deleted and everyone getting access to the files there is no other way to do private FTP apart from a work around with virtualmin.

I would like to ask for you to consider adding a few extra things to allow this to be done in the virtualmin section properly in the future to be flexible and give more options for end users.

If this is against the design of virtualmin then I would love to hear your reasonings on why virtualmin and those coding do not want to add this functionality in and what makes it a unwanted feature.

Howdy,

You actually can have FTP users with directories outside of public_html, that’s just not what most people are after so I think the option doesn’t stand out quite as much :slight_smile:

To do that, go into Edit Users -> Add a user to this server, and while setting up that user, make sure that in the “Other user permissions” section that the FTP login is enabled in “Login Permissions”.

-Eric

You know what I feel freaking dumb and a total noob right now and that I shouldn’t be using pc’s even though I have some I.T knowledge.

This whole time I was trying to create a ‘website FTP access user’ not ‘server user’.

Once I read your post I tried the other one, volla the ftp folder I made under the server folder was mapped and wasn’t trying to use public_html.

All setup nicely now, I fricking love virtualmin with what it can do for the most part.

Apologies for all the threads and discussions I just don’t seem to get due to lapses of knowledge etc.

I also guess this is why you guys created the blank ‘homes’ directory in the server domain folder and yep exactly what it does…

Once I learn my way round I’m mostly good but its just initially learning my way round on how to do things, though I can pick up a DVR box, TV, HiFi etc and program them for the best setups without really reading a manual etc and can as they say, install and setup Windows etc with my eyes closed.

I’m sure you have other things to do like coding virtualmin than spending time replying to me and every new thread made about things.

The last few weeks has been one of those days/weeks with medical stuff and buying stuff online to getting this all sorted out for my support site I want to do as a initial starting point to build it up to the point where its big enough to justify proper hosting for it but unsure if I’m worthy to do it and be a admin and if people are going to join etc.

Thanks Eric andreychek for all the replies and patience with me. I cant thank you enough for this.