Users: The Basics
Users are alternate logins to your ExaVault account. When you create user accounts, you grant other people access to the contents of your account. Users can login with SWFT, Desktop FTP clients or EVFTP, our secure Java client.
There are typically two reasons to create user accounts:
- You want to restrict someone's access to only part of the account (their home directory) or to only certain actions (such as a download-only user)
- You want to track individuals in your accounts' activity log, rather than allowing a group of people to share a single username and password.
Users may be full access, or may be restricted to:
- Only log into a specific sub-folder.
- Allow (or not) downloading files.
- Allow (or not) uploading files
- Allow (or not) managing files and creating new folders.
- Allow (or not) viewing files on the server.
- Allow (or not) deleting files on the server.
- Allow (or not) sending files and creating shared folders
- Allow (or not) setting up notifications
- Allow (or not) changing of their login password.
For more details, see User Security.
Setting Up Users
To access the Users page:
- Log into SWFT as the main account user (https://swft.exavault.com/) or as an admin user.
- Click the Users link in the toolbar.
On the Users page, you will see an overview of all of the user accounts that you have created for your FTP server.
- To add a new user, click the 'Add New User' button.
- To edit an existing user, click the 'Edit' button next to the user you wish to edit.
- To delete a user, click the 'X' button next to the user you wish to delete.
Adding Users
When you add a user, you will see a window where you may enter the following details:
| username | The username that they will use to login. |
|---|---|
| nickname | A meaningful name for you to help you remember who uses this login. |
| The email address for this User (so you can contact them). Note that the email address is required for users who can share files or set up notifications | |
| Send welcome email to this user | Enabling this option will send an email message to your new user, informing them that their account has been set up and including the address to log into the server. You will still need to provide the password to your user directly. |
| password | The password for this user (make sure you record it somewhere!) |
| permissions | The actions that the user is allowed to do on your account |
| home folder | The directory that the user will automatically log into when they connect. Users restricted to a home folder will have no access to any files outside of that folder. |
Usernames can be just about anything you like, but be aware of three restrictions:
- Usernames must be alpha-numeric and minimum of three characters.
- Each username must be unique. For example:
- You cannot have two accounts with a username of
fred. - The username
fredmay only ever log into one FTP account. This means that if another ExaVault customer has created an account forfred, you may not also make an account forfred - You may find it easiest to use an email address as a username.
Editing Users
Editing a user is very similar to adding a user. There is one key difference, however: you won't be able to see the user's password.
- User passwords are encrypted for security (just like the master user's password).
- All users must have a password that is three characters in length.
- You may change the password in the edit window.
- You may prevent the user from changing their password
Disabling Users
You may choose to “disable” a user. This will prevent the user from logging in to your account – while still allowing you to own the username. Disabled users will receive an error when they attempt to log in to the system. Disabling a user will prevent that user from logging into the system in any manner, such as SWFT or by using a desktop FTP client.
- To disable an account, check the 'Lock this user' checkbox on the Edit User page.
Log in as User
If you wish to test that a particular user account has the correct rights, you can click the LOG IN AS USER link below that user's username. You will be logged out of SWFT and automatically logged in as that user.
