Ubuntu – How to prevent users from accessing the root directory

permissionsusers

While still allowing my account to access the root directory. I've tried adding myself to the root group with $ sudo adduser myaccount root but when I do $ sudo chmod o-r /etc followed by $ cd /etc $ dir it says permission denied.

Maybe I'm thinking about the wrong solution for my problem. I setup an ssh server with OpenSSH and want to give users the ability to navigate and edit files in a specific folder /home/myaccount/website/deveopment/ without giving them the ability to view or edit anything else.

To solve that problem, I'm attempting to disable 'other group' read permissions from every folder in root so that only root can access them. That's when I ran into the above problem. Even after adding myself to root, I still can't access directories with 'other group' read permissions disabled.

Best Answer

If all you want is for the users to be able to sftp files to/from a particular folder, why don't you set them up with an sftp chroot? This will make the folder you designate appear to be the root in their login.

See: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/590 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=858475

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