Plesk for Linux, by default only allows one ftp users (While it does let you add multiple web users, they are locked to the same directory as the main ftp user). However you can get around this limitation by creating additional FTP users by creating them outside of Plesk, using SSH / Shell. The process is fairly simple as well and you can setup any directory structure that you want the new user to connect to, even for adding ftp access behind the root of a web directory if you like.

To do this, we simply need to do the following;

*Prior to doing this, make sure you already have an existing ftp user in place, as you will need their ID#

1. Log into your Linux server (Only applies to a dedicated server, colo server or virtual server - VPS).

2. Once you have logged in, you need to find an ID of an existing FTP user. To do this, simply type the following:

$id user     (user is the name of the existing ftp user)

3. If you have the user, you will be given an output that looks like this;

# uid=10002(user) gid=2524(psacln) groups=2524(psacln)

4. Take the uid number as you will need this to setup the new user.

5. Now, create the new user by using this command. Also with this command, you can set the directory you want them to have access to.;

/usr/sbin/useradd -u 10002 -o -d /var/www/vhosts/example.com/custom_folder -g psacln -s /bin/false newuser    (newuser is the name if the new account)

6. The new user has been created. Now you have to assign a password to it. To do this, type the following *make sure the password is not the same as the main Plesk ftp account*;

$passwd newuser password (Change password to the password you want to assign to the user)

7. It will then ask for you to confirm the password, type the password again. If done correctly, you will get the following message;

passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

That’s it, the ftp user has been created. If you ever want to remove the user, you have to do it via command line as Plesk will not sure the user. To do this, simply type the following;

$/usr/sbin/userdel username

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1. SSH to the server that has VsFTP, and SU to it.
2. Edit file /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf, find line
anonymous_enable=YES
change to
anonymous_enable=NO
3. Do /sbin/service vsftpd restart
4. Try to ftp to domain or IP without providing a user/password. Access will be rejected.

Anonymous FTP has been rejected!

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If you are running vsftpd in standalone mode (not Xinetd), add the “listen_port” directive in vsftpd.conf,like this:

listen_port=222

If you are running vsftpd from an inetd or xinetd program, this becomes an inetd or xinetd problem. You must change the inetd or xinetd configuration files (perhaps /etc/inetd.conf or /etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd).

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If your FTP connection through Plesk fails, there are a few things you can check first.

1. Log into the server via SSH (if you are using windows, you will need a SSH client. I use Putty

2. Make sure you access su (root access).

Now that you are logged in, type te following;

ftp localhost

If you get the message of;

Connected to localhost(127.0.0.1).
220 ProFTPD 1.3.0 Server(ProFTPD)[127.0.0.1]
Name(localhost:user):

Then the ftp server is working correctly. However if you do not get that, but instead get this;

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SFTP is an FTP protocol that runs on top of the SSH (Secure Shell) protocol, while SSL/TLS refers to standard FTP running on top of an SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) connection. SSL/TLS provides 128-256 bit encryption. SSH provides 128-256 bit encryption as well.

Sidenote to this. I know filezilla server is  a popular FTP server application. HOWEVER!!! It does not support SFTP currently and is not in development at the moment and probably never will support this.

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