I rent my own virtual server. I installed Ubuntu Server 14.04 and use it as a webserver. I have hosted some websites of my own on this server, as virtual hosts. I also have a few friends who I give access to my server, so they can host their websites, use FTP to my server and so forth.
My /var/www/html looks like this:
phpmyadmin/
myownsite/
mysecondsite/
friendssite/
anotherfriendssite/
...
I give my friends their own login for PHPMyAdmin, I create them a new user for ProFTPd, and setup a new folder for them to mess around in. I don't want them to be able to access all of the files under /var/www/html, so I make sure they are locked into their own home folder and set their home folder to be /var/www/html/[theirsite]
However, I want to have an "overseeing" FTP user for myself, so I can easily help my friends set up their website while providing them with their own login. This FTP user should have permission to write, delete etc in all of the folders.
Big problem: I cannot use root for this. Login to FTP by root is disabled by default, and when I do enable it, it's trapped inside it's home folder (/root, which cannot be changed), just like all other users. How should I manage my users and permissions? Also, the PHP files need stay able to write to the server too, of course.
