Overview
This article is an overview on how to add users to your server. The following topics are mentioned.
Adding a user to a Shared server
To add a new website user:
- Navigate to FTP & SSH Users page in your panel.
- Click the + Add A User button at the top right.
- The 'Add User Details' page appears:
- Enter the following:
- Username — A username for the new user.
- Nickname — A nickname for the new user.
- What server will this user have access to? — Click the down arrow and select the Shared server on which the user will have access.
- Secure shell access — Use the toggle button to enable Secure Shell/SSH (right) or disable (left). If 'Secure shell access' is disabled, then SFTP is used.
- Select the Shell Type — If Secure shell access is enabled, then the 'Select the Shell Type' drop-down box appears. You can select bash, tcsh, ksh, or zsh. See the Shell users section below for more information.
- When finished, click the Create User button.
Difference between SFTP and Shell users
New users are created as SFTP or Shell users. The following explains the difference between these user types.
SFTP users
FTP is not considered a secure protocol since all of your traffic (including your login information) is transferred over the Internet in plain text, where anyone could eavesdrop. For more information, see FTP Security.
For this reason, DreamHost strongly recommends you only use an SFTP or Shell user. If you need to use FTP for any reason, see the FTP overview article for instructions on how to change the protocol to FTP.
SFTP users are similar to FTP users except that this type of protocol uses an encrypted connection to the server. Port 22 is used in your client to connect to the server via SFTP.
You can view and create an SFTP user on the FTP & SSH Users page, by clicking 'Show Info' and then clicking the 'Edit Access Settings' link to switch the protocol:
The Manage Users page shows the username and the type of user it’s configured as. In the example above, the user is named 'wp_3jkh4r' and it's an SFTP user.
Every website hosted with DreamHost is "owned" by exactly one user. However, a single user may own more than one website. In that case, each site would have its own directory under the user's root directory.
You can configure the account so that a user only has access to one subdirectory on a DreamHost website.
Shell users
Shell users are users who can connect via SSH, SFTP, and (optionally) FTP. The "Shell" is the Linux command line on your hosting server, a useful alternative for advanced users.
When creating a Shell user, you are currently given 4 options for the command line:
- Bash – stands for Bourne-again shell, and is the default shell on Linux and Mac OS based systems.
- Tcsh – is an enhanced version of the Berkeley UNIX C shell. It is a command language interpreter that can be used as an interactive login shell and a shell script command processor.
- Ksh – also know as KornShell, and is an interactive command line language that can provide access to the UNIX system as well as other systems on which it’s implemented.
- Zsh – a shell made for interactive use and is also a scripting language.
See the following article for more information about using available shells at DreamHost:
Why does it say my name is already taken?
On shared web hosting accounts, the "namespace" for usernames is shared across a fairly large cluster of machines. As a result, all the usernames created for FTP/SFTP/SHELL users must be unique across the whole group. Typically, common user names such as “admin” have already been taken so users may need to add extra characters to their user to ensure it is unique.
Deleting a user
See the following article for further information on how to delete a website user:
Unfortunately, this is not possible. View the One user per domain policy article for details.
Adding a user to a private server
The steps to add a user to a VPS machine are the same as above. The following article walks you through this process.
Changing an FTP/SFTP user into a Shell user
If you need to log into your server via SSH, your username must be configured as a Shell user. View the following article for instructions on how to enable a shell user.
Logging into your server
Now that a user has been created, you can log in using an FTP client, or SSH (SSH users only). View the following articles for further information.
