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I'm running a vps with a cpanel/whm/lamp, everything works fine. but i can't access the root using FTP. i type my ip and "root" and the root password but i get: Cannot connect.

Any ideas? i want to browse through the /var/ folders and stuff, how to enable that?

Thanks.

3 Answers 3

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Tom -

I'd highly recommend leaving root disabled via FTP (as it appears to be right now). Enabling it can leave you open to brute force attacks and eventual server compromise if your root password is weak. Even if your password isn't weak, the probability of compromise is still there (but it would take longer).

If you really need root access to your server via a FTP-ish client, you may want to consider using SFTP via ssh for that. Enabling root access via SFTP isn't a good idea either, but you can shore up your security a bit by requiring keys for your ssh users. This can be a little daunting for beginners, but there's a pretty brief and concise guide which may be able to help you:

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It's likely that the root user is disabled for FTP access and also likely that your non-root user is chrooted to your home directory (standard security practice).

Without knowing what features you're entitled to on your VPS, it's hard to say what you can or cannot do and how to go about doing it.

My recommendation would be to talk to your VPS hosting provider and ask them.

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The better option for enabling browsing for your /var directory is to modify its permissions so that the user/group you want to browse that directory has the right permissions. You could make an FTP group on your VPS, then assign group ownership on /var via chown. You may need to change the file permission to allow reading of the files as well.

Its a better idea to do all this via SFTP as well, as SFTP uses SSH protocols to connect to your server, encrypting the information being transmitted

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