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I'm needing to setup a basic web user account on my ubuntu 10.10 server to host web pages. This account should be limited to access only the necessary directories on the machine. I setup the following account but nothing happens when I try to log into it:

:~$ groupadd -g 1005 webgroup
//I then changed the group and permissions of a current user I had already created
:~$ sudo usermod -g 1005 -s /bin/false -d /home/webuser/ webuser

When trying to login using this account I enter the username [webuser] and the password but it just redirects me back to the login: prompt. I tried resetting the password but still have the same problem.

Can someone either tell me what I'm doing wrong, or suggest another method that would achieve the same result (if not a better one).

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up vote 2 down vote accepted

You're getting kicked back to the login: prompt because the shell is set to /bin/false. That's not a bad idea for any user that shouldn't allow logins (you should really use /sbin/nologin), but you'll need to change it to a valid shell like /bin/bash to log in with that account.

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+1, Good call with /sbin/nologin –  Hyppy Mar 22 '11 at 0:25
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