Read-only FTP access?

**Bob Barr** · Share | #1 (**permalink**) 04-21-2012, 11:41 PM

Is there any way to set up an FTP account to allow read-only access?

I want to allow certain people to download from a folder, restricting access by user name and password. I also want to prevent anyone from uploading anything to the folder. (I'm thinking that using file permissions won't help in preventing downloads.)

I'm on Linux hosting using cPanel for my control panel if that makes any difference.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

**HTMLBasicTutor** · #2 (**permalink**) 04-21-2012, 11:50 PM

I have never tried this but this find sounds like what you are looking for: FTP Users with Only Read Access to a Shared Directory

I Googled restricting ftp access linux to find that.

RDS Hosting · #3 (**permalink**) 04-22-2012, 07:05 PM

In your control panel go to the directory you wish to limit writing capability to set the file permissions (chmod) to 444. Some FTP clients like cute FTP allow you to chmod directories and files as well.

**Bob Barr** · #4 (**permalink**) 04-22-2012, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDS Hosting

In your control panel go to the directory you wish to limit writing capability to set the file permissions (chmod) to 444. Some FTP clients like cute FTP allow you to chmod directories and files as well.

Thanks, I'll look into that. If I can set 444 for the entire folder, doing that may work well. (If I understand how things work correctly, setting the files within the folder to 444 wouldn't keep users from adding their own files to the folder. That's especially what I want to prevent.)

RDS Hosting · #5 (**permalink**) 04-22-2012, 09:12 PM

Hi Bob Barr,

Setting the directory its self to 444 will eliminate the possibility of anyone writing to that directory or editing files.
A question for you though. Do the users who will be accessing the files require only FTP access? Otherwise you could allow indexing on the directory and password protect it forcing users to login to view the files while allowing them to use their browser.

Just a thought.
Scott

codefish · #6 (**permalink**) 05-14-2012, 05:27 AM

ssh as root, change the owner of the directory and files to some other user and group (not root, nor the ftp user), change the permissions of the directory to 774

jackal · #7 (**permalink**) 07-23-2012, 11:49 PM

there is no need to know ftp permissions,

you just logon to your cpanel, go to ftp accounts and create a new ftp account, and set the rquired directory you want to associate to a particular account.

after that there are option of permissions that you can set for each account.

it is that easy as drag and drop as all thing are based on GUI, and cpanel is the best and most easiest control panel yet

If you need further help then plz tell me