Configuring SFTP in Centos/Redhat

In this post I will be explaining the steps to configure SFTP in redhat/centos servers, more importantly I will chroot the sftp user to restrict his privileges.

Step1 :Create a group, that will be limited to SFTP and add a user to that group.  Here as an example, 

add the group "group_manoj", which will be limited to SFTP and add the user "user_manu" to the group as below:

Step2:

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Now, open the file "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" and find the line starting with "Subsystem"  and change it to as below: 

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Subsystem       sftp    internal-sftp

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Add the following lines to the end of the same file:

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Match Group group_manoj

    ChrootDirectory %h

    ForceCommand internal-sftp

    X11Forwarding no

    AllowTcpForwarding no

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After this restart ssh as "service sshd restart"

Now, run the below command to create a directory called "upload" and set permission as below:

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mkdir /home/user_manu/upload

chown root. /home/user_manu

chmod 755 /home/user_manu

chgrp -R group_manoj /home/user_manu

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Now, try to sftp to the server as sftp user "user_manu". 

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sftp user_manu@67.xxx.xx.xx

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Kool :)