If I wanted to host a website for a friend, how should I go about this?

If he were to have access via something like FTP, perhaps like a regular web host, how should I do this?

Should I create a new user on my linode and have the user's home directory be where they host their site? Connecting via FTP?

I'm new to linode and am running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Yes, that's exactly what you should do.


You could do that with proftpd or vsftpd, but FTP is generally considered insecure because the username and password are transmitted in plain text. Instead, give your friend an SSH account that is jailed to his/her home directory. (Google for "ssh jail home directory".) SSH includes SFTP, which is much more secure than FTP and your friend can use it just like good old FTP .

That makes sense. Most FTP clients allow connecting via SFTP...

And, before looking at this SSH jail stuff, I'm assuming this means that the user won't be able to go exploring around the system? It locks, or "jails," them to their home directory?


Thanks!

Yes, we have a tutorial if you need a starting point as well-
http://library.linode.com/security/sftp-jails

Thank you. The google search lead me right there.

A couple other questions:
1) Is there a way to allow the user to set their own password?
2) Is there any software that would allow a user some sort of web interface for this sort of thing?

This seems to have made it so I cannot login on the account I put in the sudoers file. And I also cannot login via sftp with the account I setup for sftp.

Hrmm.... now I cannot login to my linode.

Edit:
More info:
I have root ssh access turned off, I've turned of password authentication to use SSH keys instead. My user account, that I created and added to the sudoers file, is unable to login via a terminal at the moment. Also, I can't seem to login with the account I made for my friend (via sftp).

Is there something I did incorrect? I followed the Linode guide.


Thanks.

It sounds like all users were added to the jailed sftp-group ('filetransfer' in the guide) instead of just the intended user (or something to that effect)

Can you login via lish?

Yes, I can login via lish.

Could you post your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file, please?

sshd_config:

# Package generated configuration file
# See the sshd_config(5) manpage for details

# What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for
Port 22
# Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to
#ListenAddress ::
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
Protocol 2
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
#Privilege Separation is turned on for security
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes

# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
KeyRegenerationInterval 3600
ServerKeyBits 768

# Logging
SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel INFO


# Authentication:
LoginGraceTime 120
PermitRootLogin no
StrictModes yes

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
#AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys

# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
IgnoreRhosts yes
# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts
RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# similar for protocol version 2
HostbasedAuthentication no
# Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes

# To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED)
PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with
# some PAM modules and threads)
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords
#PasswordAuthentication yes
PasswordAuthentication no

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosGetAFSToken no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes

# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
PrintMotd no
PrintLastLog yes
TCPKeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no

#MaxStartups 10:30:60
#Banner /etc/issue.net

# Allow client to pass locale environment variables
AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

Subsystem sftp internal-sftp

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
# PasswordAuthentication. Depending on your PAM configuration,
# PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
# If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without
# PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication
# and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.
UsePAM ye


#Match group filetransfer
# ChrootDirectory %h
# X11Forwarding no
# AllowTcpForwarding no
# ForceCommand internal-sftp


Also, I seem to be having an issue restarting my ssh via /etc/init.d/ssh restart. This is the output when I run that command:

Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8)
utility, e.g. service ssh restart

Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an
Upstart job, you may also use the restart(8) utility, e.g. restart ssh
ssh start/running, process 15959


When I run service ssh restart, I get this:
restart: Unknown instance:

Also, connecting via ssh and the mac terminal, I get this:
ssh: connect to host colegroff.com port 22: Connection refused

I am now able to login via ssh and my terminal. I somehow screwed up a part of the sshd_config file:
"UsePAM ye "

This section said "ye" instead of "yes". So now I can login all right. I'm going to checkout the other issues later tonight.

Have a look at virtualmin GPL as I believe it may be what you're looking for and is free.

FWIW I'm running it and it works great on linode.