VPS v2 Support Documentation

VPS User Permissions

Users on your Virtual Private Server can have different permissions, which grants or denies them access to use Shell, FTP, or Email. These permissions can be set or changed when you Manage User Accounts.

Email Permissions

In order to use a remote Email client (such as Microsoft Outlook) to send and receive Email, a user must have Email permissions. Email permissions allow a user to remotely send messages with SMTP, and to use POP or IMAP to download messages. When adding a user with the vadduser command, Email is enabled by default.

Select/deselect services [email ftp shell]:

To remove Email, type email at the prompt shown above. You will then see the same list as above, except the email entry will be removed.

Select/deselect services [ftp shell]:

You can re-add Email to the list by typing email at the prompt.

To modify Email permissions for a user who already exists, you can edit the /etc/group file. A user with Email permissions needs to be listed in the pop and imap group member list. Below is an example of the pop group entry with two users (admin and test).

pop:*:82:admin,test

FTP Permissions

To allow users to use FTP to copy files to and from the Virtual Private Server, they must have FTP access. You can allow or disallow FTP access when you set up the user with the vadduser command, or you can add or remove the user from the ftp group in the /etc/group file. (see Email permissions above).

Shell Permissions

Granting VPS users shell access gives them the power to connect to their filespace on the server and work directly with files and run commands. When you give a user shell access using the vadduser tool, you will be prompted to select a shell for the user from a list. Because the shell access is defined at the end of the user's entry in the /etc/passwd/ file, you need to use the pw command to change the default shell or to disable or enable shell access. A user without shell access will have /sbin/nologin as their shell.