Symlinks & chroot - Is it Possible?

[Drew Tomlinson]

On 4/3/2004 12:13 PM Mark wrote:

>Drew Tomlinson wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I have a few users that I wish to allow FTP access on my
>>4.9-RELEASE-p4 system.  I've setup their accounts and added them to
>>/etc/ftpchroot to lock them into their login directories.
>>They are in the standard /home/user dirs.
>>
>>However, I want all of them to have access to another directory
>>(/ftp/share) that is setup read-only. I tried adding a symlink to
>>/ftp/share but I've found this doesn't work when the user is chrooted.
>>    
>>
>
>
>True. A symlink cannot traverse 'up' the chroot; only a hardlink can (to a
>file). Personally, I would not use something as beta as "mount_null". When
>the man pages say: "(READ: IT DOESN'T WORK)", I would stay clear of it.
>
>There are other ways, though. You say your chroot is at:
>
> /etc/ftpchroot
>  
>
Thank you for your reply.  No, I created the file /etc/ftpchroot to 
chroot the user at /home/<username>.  Sorry for the confusion.

>I'm not necessarily sure whether the root-partition is the best place for a
>chroot; 
>
Agreed.

>but working from that fact, you could "reverse" the condition.
>Instead of trying to link to /ftp/share, from within the chroot, you could
>do the opposite: first create the following directory:
>
>    /etc/ftpchroot/ftp/share
>
>Then, in /ftp/, symlink to within the chrooted dir:
>
>    share -> /etc/ftpchroot/ftp/share
>
>Then "/ftp/share" is accessible from both the 'real' and the chrooted
>environment, pointing to the same directory.
>  
>
Short of another solution, I may move things around to implement your 
suggestion.

Thanks,

Drew