How to create an SFTP only user

Introduction

SFTP is a secure protocol, but cPanel FTP users cannot use SFTP. This is because SFTP requires a user to have shell access, which FTP users do not have. To provide SFTP access without providing a user with the cPanel account's credentials, you can create a user with the adduser command and set the user's home directory to the directory to which you want the user to have FTP access.

Procedure

Please note that the following procedure assumes that you want to provide the new FTP account with access to a cPanel user's home directory. If you want to give the user access to a specific folder, replace "/home/$cpusername" with the full path to the folder.

1. Access the server's command line as the 'root' user via SSH or "Terminal" in WHM.
2. Use the adduser command to add the new user account.
   • RHEL-based

     1.   /home/$cpusername --gid $cpusername $ftpusername

        Please note that "$cpusername" and "ftpusername" must be replaced with the username of the cPanel account the FTP user will access and the username for the new FTP account, respectively.
     2. Run the passwd command for the new user.

        passwd $ftpusername

        Please note that "$ftpusername" must be replaced with the username created above.
   • Ubuntu

     adduser --home /home/$cpusername --ingroup $cpusername --gecos GECOS $ftpusername

     Please note that "$cpusername" and "ftpusername" must be replaced with the username of the cPanel account the FTP user will access and the username for the new FTP account, respectively.
3. Enter the password for the new user.
4. Re-enter the password.
5. Ensure that the folders to which the new user has access have read and write permissions enabled for the group user.

   chmod g+rw -R /home/$cpusername

   Please note that "$cpusername" must be replaced with the username of the cPanel account the FTP user will access.

Additional resources

How to create sudo users

How to create sudo users on Ubuntu servers