Configuring Sendmail and VSFTPD

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 17:53 5/6/2004, you wrote:
>first off, wow fast response.=)

Welcome to Linux. <grin>

>I want to install cutecast. (http://www.artscore.net/cutecast/). I asked 
>the admin what SMTP server they use for sending email notifications, 
>activation and they said Sendmail.

Sendmail is already configured to accept mail from its same machine 
(localhost) but not from the outside, so it's a reasonably secure 
configuration. If you do want to accept mail from the outside, please read 
my "Sendmail SMTP AUTH HOWTO" [1] and ask any questions either here or 
directly. Otherwise, no need to do anything.

[1] http://www.simpaticus.com/linux

>Basicly I want to give my friend FTP access to his webarea (runs apache2) 
>so that / in his FTP client would be '/var/www/html/PS' so that he can 
>upload his files and chmod.

I would suggest that the best way is to make a user for your friend, say 
"joe". Then create a "www" directory in joe's home directory (/home/joe), 
and create a "virtualhost" in Apache that points to /home/joe/www. That way 
his website files are in his home directory, where they are easy for him to 
reach but difficult for others (except Apache). You may need to make sure 
/home/joe and /home/joe/www have 701 permissions, I'm not sure. vsftpd will 
automatically chroot the user to his home directory, I think. If not, it's 
easy to configure but I don't remember how off-hand.

Note that this has the advantage that people usually remember to back up 
/home but usually not /var... makes your data safer and your users simpler 
to manage. If you wanted to try a completely different approach, however, 
you could try just creating a user "psforum" and changing that user's home 
directory to /var/www/html/PS. Same results, I think, just not as neat.

Post again if you get stuck somewhere.

Cheers,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com