Customizing User Folders with /etc/skel ?

[gzarkadas]

This seems similar to what I want to do. I have a small user base (4) at the moment!
In /etc/skel/ I have added Public /Public/ftp /Public/incomming

What I'd like is to is this, for existing users and users I may add in the future.

I run an sftp/ftp server, in these I have incomming (I know its spelt wrong)
in which there are folders jono johnh etc

I need incomming "mounted" in home/$user/Public/incomming and only $user incomming folder write-able by the owner.

At present I manually write the xtra bits to fstab.

/home/incomming /home/ftp/incomming none rw,bind 0 0
/home/ftp /home/jono/Public/ftp none rw,bind 0 0
/home/incomming /home/jono/Public/incomming none rw,bind 0 0
/home/incomming /home/johnh/incomming none rw,bind 0 0
/home/ftp/ /home/johnh/ftp none rw,bind 0 0
/home/incomming /home/jackief/incomming none rw,bind 0 0
/home/ftp/ /home/jackief/ftp none rw,bind 0 0
/home/ftp/ /home/annon none rw,bind 0 0
/home/ftp /home/jeffw/documents/ftp none rw,bind 0 0
/home/incomming /home/jeffw/documents/incomming none rw,bind 0 0

any clues as to how to automate this?

I haven't set up an ftp server yet, so I don't know whether there are specific needs regarding how you set permissions to directories underneath the ftp server's tree. If there aren't any, then simply setting permissions as needed for your users' directories inside /home/incomming/ and putting something like the following inside the /etc/skel/.bashrc

if [ ! -e ${HOME}/Public/ftp ] ; then
    ln -s /home/ftp/ ${HOME}/Public/ftp
fi
if [ ! -e ${HOME}/Public/incomming ] ; then
    ln -s /home/incomming/${USER} ${HOME}/Public/incomming
fi

would do the trick. You still need a way to make the folders inside /home/incomming, but this can be wrapped around the `adduser' command (for example by creating a wrapper script that first makes the folders, then adds the user) so that they can be executed as part of the account creation process.

[kernst]

There is no need for a setuid script, not even for changing /etc/sudoers (which is indeed a better approach); /mnt/data permissions can simply be set as drxwrwxrwt (ie set the sticky bit)

Ah, yesh, yesh, the sticky bit. You're right: much less fuss that way.

I rescind my previous remarks about sudo and the "NOPASSWD:" option. Though I do hope that post was at least educational for someone.