Re: Recommend Linux Distro, Mail/MTA/FTP daemon?

From: Nico Kadel-Garcia (nkadel_at_comcast.net)
Date: 10/14/03 

Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 08:03:45 -0400

The little lost angel wrote:

> On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:50:29 -0400, Nico Kadel-Garcia
> <nkadel@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>>In theory, yes. In practice, it means you can't use the "passwd"
>>command, or integrate it easily with throwaway accounts and file
>>ownership. The proftpd alternate passwd file structure had to maintained
>>by hand using cut+paste and tools like "htpasswd" for generating new
>>encrypted passwords.
>
>
> Erm, that's not the way I was planning to do it :P
>
> Because pureftpd supports mySQL DB, the user/password file appears to
> be just a simple table. So it appears to be relatively easy to cook up
> a php/mySQL web front end for this sort of admin. :P
>
> If I had to do in some shell script, it will probably bomb though :P

Gack. "It can't use the standard tool that's existed in UNIX since it's
first release, so I'll write a custom front end to replace that, in
MySQL and HTML, and make it as secure and reliable."

This is why I like "passwd" and "useradd". They're simple and have been
tested out fairly robustly, and are likely to continue working.

>>Oh, goodness, you don't *give* them shell access. The shell is set to
>>/bin/false or /sbin/nologin: but as a root user, with the FTP user in
>>front of you, you can have them type in the password themselves using
>>the "passwd username" command, rather than doing other more awkward steps.
>
>
> Erm, wasn't going to be around to meet the users for this sort of
> thing. Was planning to do up a web front end, whether they are in
> Mongolia, Timbuktu or Antartica, they just log up the front end and
> change passwords or add users for their virtual domains :P

I don't let them touch my FTP server remotely for manipulating their
accounts. And writing secure, reliable CGI to manipulate user accounts
remotely makes me really, really twitchy.

> but if I tried to input ab or hit enter, it just doesn't go anywhere.

??? I work from the command line, and have never been asked something
like this. What in the heck were you using?

> In the end, I thought it was be in quotes or something and did 'ab'
> which worked, but wasn't what I wanted. Had to delete the user and
> after a few tries realized, the user name cannot be the same as the
> name I use for useradd... it's kinda DUH or is it just ME? :P

That's kind of duh, yes. This does not sound like the "useradd" tool
that *I* use....

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