UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

can someone tell me how I can deal with a problem am having concerning users that are faliing to use one of the shells specified in the /etc/shells file.

as a result, am told, these users are bound fail to connect via FTP. i know i goto check the /etc/shells file on the target host but what am supposed to do in order to remedy this problem is what I need help with.


also, can someone give me an idea of what the full purpose of the .netrc file is??? what should be in it for users to be able to autologin to the server??

please help

if a user is using an invalid shell according to /etc/shells
that means that whatever shell they are using is not listen in /etc/shells
so for example if the user is using bash, then in /etc/shells you want to make sure that the line
/bin/bash
exists. make sure you have the full path to the shell, or else it wont work. you cant just put in 'bash' on a line in /etc/shells , you will still get complaints of invalid shell. a user using an invalid shell can still login from the console, but cant su, and cant login from anywhere else.

thanks for the help

Now, I want to be able to allow and disallow some users from using ftp. On linux systems, it says to edit the ftpaccess file. can someone tell me what exactly to edit in that /etc/ftpaccess file??

also, if i was supposed to do the same thing on a solaris system, what file do I edit??

the file /etc/ftpusers lists users on the system that may not ftp, including root and other privelaged users.

why wouldn't root be allowed to ftp? isn't root the god of unix??

not allowing root ftp, aswell as root telnet, and other remote process, keeps the system more secure. by not allowing root login, it helps to protect against unauthorized root usage. instead of hoping no one can guess or crack your root password, just not allow root logins at all. another reason is that ftp is not an encrypted protocol, therefor your username and password is transmitted in plain text. root login is usually allowed with ssh, which is encrypted. imo i dont think you really need root priv for ftp anyway. whatever files that you are transfering, say if youput something on the server, you can always telnet (or ssh) into the server and su to root, and then use roots privelages for whatever it is you had to do.