On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.orgwrote:

On 11/13/2009 07:16 PM, Victor Subervi wrote:

...

Hi; I've learned how to add a user and change the root dir of vsftpd (which of course is undocumented). Now I need to learn how to make it so that a given user can only access his/her folder (within the root dir). Please

not sure what docs you are looking at - but all these things are quite clearly documented in the vsftpd docs and config files. Start by looking there.

Well, you all pointed me to some documentation that was hardly worthy of the name. In fact, I'd dare say that "vsftp" stands for "Very SansDocs FTP". I googled and discovered a script for creating and adding users to vsftpd, and how to change the doc root--stuff that should be right up front in any documentation for an ftp server worth the name--but was unsuccessful in finding how to point certain users to certain folders within the doc root.

It almost seems as if you are relying on this list to be your sysadmin and your sp0onfeeder.

I apologize. It's been several years since I ran a server and I just need to get this server up and running. I'm unfamiliar with the OS, and each OS is different. I'll study the docs after I get up on my feet. And yesterday was an emergency because of my own stupidity. Everyone makes stupid mistakes, even you guys, and everyone has emergencies, so I hope you'll be a little understanding.

eg. Start by indicating what docs you have looked and what is it that you didnt find.

Again, I googled this. man vsftpd has virtually nothing. Googling "vsftpd docs" gives about as much. Also tried man vsftpd.conf which was much more useful but still didn't provide the information I need, which it seems to me is fundamental! Perhaps I've missed something, and if I have, I apologize in advance.

Also, be considerate and dont top post. if you dont know what that means

• go look it up

I haven't been doing that for quite some time now, except when I'm thanking you all for help, in which case I believe it's easier for all concerned. Do you disagree? TIA, V

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.orgwrote:

...

I haven't been doing that for quite some time now, except when I'm thanking you all for help, in which case I believe it's easier for all concerned. Do you disagree?

dont top post at all.

Now, forgive me, but that seems anal. What's the rationale there? V

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 7:01 AM, John R. Dennison jrd@gerdesas.com wrote:

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 05:45:34AM -0500, Victor Subervi wrote:

...

Now, forgive me, but that seems anal. What's the rationale there?

   While that may seem "anal" to you, it's one of the guidelines
   of this and other CentOS mailing lists as specified at:

   http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=16

   It's also common practice for almost every mailing list
   that I am a member of outside of the CentOS related lists
   also.

Ok. It's "the law". Now, what is the __logic__ behind not top posting a "Thanks everyone! I got it!" once everything is understood and it's the __last_post__. Top-posting in such an instance is more convenient for everyone. They don't have to scroll down. Just a "thank you!" and goodbye. While I agree with the logic of not top posting for every other instance, isn't that more logical in __this__ instance? V

They don't have to scroll down. Just a "thank you!" and goodbye.

"Thank You"

did you have to scroll down to read that?

More important than top vs bottom is EDITING THE QUOTED PORTION OF THE MESSAGE.

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Andrei F frunzales@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,

Take a look at the chroot_list_enable option. It enables you to specify per-user config.

http://vsftpd.beasts.org/vsftpd_conf.html

Thank you. V

----- Original Message ----

From: Jim Perrin jperrin@gmail.com To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Fri, November 13, 2009 3:31:42 PM Subject: Re: [CentOS] vsftpd question

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Victor Subervi wrote:

...

Hi; I've learned how to add a user and change the root dir of vsftpd (which of course is undocumented). Now I need to learn how to make it so that a given user can only access his/her folder (within the root dir). Please advise.

Please stop being rude to the members of this list.

This list is for people who are having trouble accomplishing a set task or have a question. It is not a 'system administration by proxy' tool because you can't be bothered to try on your own, or are to busy/lazy to read the documentation.

-- During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Jim,

thank you for saying that, I was almost at the point myself to go off on this person for being lazy. I do not think it is being busy that he is hitting this list so much for simple to find answers.

my 2 cents worth

...

Please stop being rude to the members of this list.

I am not being rude in the least. Perhaps it is because email is so difficult to communicate attitudes, as we all know, that you are viewing things one way while I am saying them another. At any rate, please accept my apologies, although I have not been rude and therefore truly have no need to apologize.

Hi Victor,

The problem here, what's got people calling you rude, isn't the language of your posts to this list, it's the questions. We all have day jobs and we come on this list to ask questions to help us better complete our day job and/or our hobby.

That's not to say that we expect everyone on this list to be linux experts, far from it. What we do expect is that people will have done their homework, reading the manuals/man pages, googling the problem, etc before they come to the list.

To many us, myself included, you've come across as someone who hasn't done their homework before asking questions. Simple things like "How do I start MySQL at boot?" take a few minutes of reading the CentOS manual to find the answer. When you pose the question, someone answers with "read the manual" (because the answer is easy to find), and you respond with "I'm too busy to read the manual, I'll read it later", that comes across as extremely rude. It's rude because is shows disrespect for the time we take out of our day to read lists like CentOS and help others.

Hope that helps.

mark wrote:

I got the book, and followed the directions. I, and others, have pointed you to stuff, Viktor. You say you've not run a server in a while, and that "every OS is different." I'm assuming that means you ran Windows servers, and have not yet taken enough time to actually learn how *nix works (Chapter 2 of Frisch's book).

I assumed that he meant some other flavor of unix, since in several decades they have not managed to set and follow a standard for administration and the particular things in question vary wildly across them. But if you've only used Red Hat style systems - or maybe even SysV it might not be obvious how quirky they are.

m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:

...

mark wrote:

...

I got the book, and followed the directions. I, and others, have pointed you to dtuff, Viktor. You say you've not run a server in a while, and that "every OS is different." I'm assuming that means you ran Windows

servers, and have

...

...

not yet taken enough time to actually learn how *nix works (Chapter 2 of Frisch's book).

I assumed that he meant some other flavor of unix, since in several decades they have not managed to set and follow a standard for administration and the particular things in question vary wildly across them. But if you've only used Red Hat style systems - or maybe even SysV it might not be obvious how quirky they are.

Don't consider them quirky - but then, I've worked in a number of *Nixes, and done admin on Sun, Sun Solaris and Tru64, as well as SuSE and RH, and found the differences relatively trivial, though Unbuntu's a little more irritating. Still, if you understand how it all works, it's more a difference in dialect, not a separate, unrelated language.

I'd consider starting things at boot time to be as unrelated as you can get. There's next to nothing in common between bsd and sysV oriented systems (I think the ones you mention are mostly sysV-ish). And the ftp config concepts go with the choice of the application, which varies even more wildly.

John R Pierce wrote:

Les Mikesell wrote:

...

I'd consider starting things at boot time to be as unrelated as you can get. There's next to nothing in common between bsd and sysV oriented systems (I think the ones you mention are mostly sysV-ish). And the ftp config concepts go with the choice of the application, which varies even more wildly.

Indeed, when I had to set some stuff up on an AIX 5.3 server a few years back, the BSD style init scripts rather threw me. It was almost as if there was just an rc.local.

And, going in the other direction, the Service Manager Facility in Solaris 10 is completely different, using XML service manifests, with monitor scripts, service properties, and a sophisticated dependency system so a service *can't* be started until all its dependencies are running.

People who are hopelessly locked in to a single flavor by some earlier choice of tools or hardware may not even understand why and how much of a problem this lack of standardization is. Even though perl and bourne-compatible shell scripts may have matching syntax across these platforms, anything dealing with automating system administration is generally doomed to failure.