Proper way to create a new user

Question

I freely admin that I am a server admin newbie, and I'd like to grant someone access to my server to help me on a project. Let's call this person 'joe'. I'd like joe to have access to only one directory via SSH with no root access. (If I can't lock him to a directory, I'm open to other ideas. Perhaps SFTP only)

I've stumbled through tutorials on adding the user and granting access in /etc/ssh/sshd_config, but I'm not sure if there are more safety precautions I should take. I'd hate to open a hole or lock things so tight that the user complains of constant permission issues.

Any suggestions on how to properly set up a user as described?

did you think about chrooting him with containers (like lxc)? [lxc howto](http://lxc.teegra.net/ "lxc howto") — Brigo, Feb 02 '13 at 00:34

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 02 '13 at 02:29

You can use rssh or ChrootDirectory option from the new(ish) OpenSSH

$ man sshd_config
[...]
    ChrootDirectory
         Specifies the pathname of a directory to chroot(2) to after authentication.  All components of the pathname must be root-owned directories that are not
         writable by any other user or group.  After the chroot, sshd(8) changes the working directory to the user's home directory.

         The pathname may contain the following tokens that are expanded at runtime once the connecting user has been authenticated: %% is replaced by a literal
         '%', %h is replaced by the home directory of the user being authenticated, and %u is replaced by the username of that user.

         The ChrootDirectory must contain the necessary files and directories to support the user's session.  For an interactive session this requires at least
         a shell, typically sh(1), and basic /dev nodes such as null(4), zero(4), stdin(4), stdout(4), stderr(4), arandom(4) and tty(4) devices.  For file
         transfer sessions using “sftp”, no additional configuration of the environment is necessary if the in-process sftp server is used, though sessions
         which use logging do require /dev/log inside the chroot directory (see sftp-server(8) for details).

         The default is not to chroot(2).

[...]

But unless you're paranoid (and you may have good reasons to be, I'm not judging), I'd just give the guy a regular shell account.

Proper way to create a new user

1 Answers1