Issue FTP User change leads to web site being unreachable

[tkalfaoglu]

I have a second confirmed case that when the main FTP username is changed, the web site becomes unreachable.
I first noticed the problem when PLESK said it could not re-generate the httpd conf files.
It was still looking for the old username on the system and getting a no such user.
When I manually rebuilt it with plesk repair web option, it still fails to show the site.
It just shows TESTING 1..2..3 apache test page even though all files exist including index.html at /var/www/vhosts/sitename

Upon examination, I noticed that the user had not renamed the FTP user but created a SECOND user that pointed to the / of the site. All files and folders contained this new username. However some permissions were way off, I noticed chmod 000'd files for example for the 'logs' subdirectory.

Followup: It had to do with `run as user` configuration settings in Apache & Nginx Settings..
The username mentioned there was the OLD username that was not updated.
I manually updated it to the new username and the problem went away.

Where you see below as 'username xyz' were the old ones.. I manually fixed them:

# === BEGIN Run PHP as User -==- Domain xyz.gen.tr: on ===
# === The following lines are processed by "Run PHP as User" software. Please do not touch lines from BEGIN to END tags! ===
<IfModule itk.c>
AssignUserId xyz psacln
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_ruid2.c>
RMode config
RUidGid apache apache
RGroups apache psaserv
RMinUidGid apache apache
<Directory ~ "^(/var/www/vhosts/xyz.gen.tr/http*docs/(?!cgi-bin/)|/usr/local/helixdev/rau/)">
RUidGid xyz psacln
RGroups psacln
</Directory>
</IfModule>

# === END Run PHP as User ===

 

[Bitpalast]

I am not sure whether this is a bug. If you deliberately instruct the system to run PHP scripts with a specific user account and remove that user account later to replace it by a different user account, for such a security setting I could imagine that it is a good decision not to automatically change the security setting along with the user change. Because purpose of a setting of "run as a specific user" is to run the scripts only as a specific user, no matter if that user actually exists at a given time or not.

However, if you believe that this is a bug, you could report it here:

Reports

Please, click Post New Thread button and fill the form if you really believe you discovered a new bug and need to report it to the Plesk developers. It does allow us to handle and resolve your requests much more efficiently. Please be careful and do not submit any found problem with this...

talk.plesk.com

 

[tkalfaoglu]

I am not sure whether this is a bug. If you deliberately instruct the system to run PHP scripts with a specific user account and remove that user account later to replace it by a different user account, for such a security setting I could imagine that it is a good decision not to automatically change the security setting along with the user change. Because purpose of a setting of "run as a specific user" is to run the scripts only as a specific user, no matter if that user actually exists at a given time or not.

However, if you believe that this is a bug, you could report it here:

Reports

Please, click Post New Thread button and fill the form if you really believe you discovered a new bug and need to report it to the Plesk developers. It does allow us to handle and resolve your requests much more efficiently. Please be careful and do not submit any found problem with this...

talk.plesk.com

Many thanks - either the plesk should correctly search/replace for the username everywhere in the httpd confs, OR it should give a big and stern warning to the user that they are courting disaster when they change the FTP username.

OR, give the admin the option to DISABLE the renaming/deleting feature of the system user.

The current implementation allows users to shoot them in the foot - very easily.
-t