How to Setup User Isolated FTP

Last Review: August 15, 2010
Product(s): Internet Information Server 6 and greater

This article describes how to setup multiple FTP sties for web publishing on a single server with one IP address and using only the standard FTP port 21:

  1. In Windows Explorer, create a D:\FTP folder. The folder should not be contained in C:\INETPUB and preferably off the system partition.

  2. Create a D:\FTP\localuser folder with permissions of Administrators Full Control, System Read, and Everyone Read.

  3. Create local user accounts for each website such as examplecompany for the web site examplecompany.com and assign desired password.

  4. For later testing purposes, create and copy a small text file for each FTP site named the same as each FTP subfolder.

  5. Create folders under D:\FTP\localuser that correspond to the created user names above. Remove Everyone permissions, add the user of the folder with Full Control permissions, and change System to Full Control.

  6. In IIS, create a new FTP site named "Web Publishing" with the server IP address, port 21, an User Isolation enabled.

  7. Log onto the desired site as the corresponding user in a browser such as ftp://www.examplecompany.com. In Internet Explorer, click the View menu and Open FTP Site in Windows Explorer. The test text file should be displayed to verify the proper site. The user should be able to drag, drop, edit, and delete freely.

  8. If you are using web publishing software, select the Publish option with the FTP URL as shown above and / for root FTP Directory.

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