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I was playing around with the FTP server in Mac OS X and came across a method to allow the built-in server to log a bit more information. I decided it might be fun to write up a small tutorial on how to do this and focus on complete unix newbies.

The tutorial can be found at the following location: Logging FTP access.

Enjoy and feel free to point out omissions, inaccuracies or post any questions you have using this newsitem's comment system.

gsuit

how do i limit access of the user once they log in? i'd like to limit them to one or two specific folders, to upload or download from only.

Harold - http://www.haroldbakker.com/

You'll have to add the users' name to the file /etc/ftpChroot.

See http://www.osxfaq.com/tips/unix-tricks/week63/friday.ws.

If you want to give them access to a specific folder outside of their homedirectory make a symbolic link to that folder and make sure that the target folder is read/write for that user.

See the manual page for symbolic links man ln (the code to use is something like:
sudo ln -s /Users/Shared/targetdir linkname.

marc herman - http://www.artefact.be

we are using os x server 10.3.5 with ftp services enabled and with regards to the log, also all options enabled.
yet, when i check out ftp.log the file seems to be empty.
when viewing the log in the server admin application, everything seems ok.
what's up?

Harold - http://www.haroldbakker.com/

Marc, I don't have access to OS X server but I assume that the ftp logfile is located somewhere else than for the regular client.

I just did a quick check on the Apple site and there's a comprehensive PDF available on administrating OS X server using the commandline. It includes a whole section on FTP that makes my mouth water just by looking at the various logging options.
It says on page 80 that the logfile is located here: /Library/Logs/FTP.transger.log.

I hope this helps you out.

HOLGI

This doesn't work an OS 10.4.11. How can i configure the ftp.log under this system?

Harold Bakker - http://www.haroldbakker.com/

I don't have a lot of time to test this and furthermore I have 10.5 but I think the following will help you out.

http://www.sveinbjorn.org/macosx_ftpserver_howto

Make a backup of the file you're editing!