SFTP as root gives me access to /root/

[frontier]

Hi guys,

When I SFTP to my server (using the root account I SSH with to set everything up) it lands me in a /root/ folder with .bash_history, .bash_logout, .bash_profile etc. I was hoping I would see the root directory (/bin /boot /dev /etc and so on). The idea is that (as web admin) I want to be able to move stuff between my client sites, which are located in /srv/www/client1/ for each user. Down the line I will set them up with FTP accounts that limit access to their folder.

Is the /root/ folder my "home directory" and - if yes - can I change it to the base directory of the server? Is this usual behaviour or could it be a problem with my SFTP client?

I'm running CentOS 5.6.

Cheers,

Sam

[Ben]

As sftp is based on ssh (don't mix it up with ftps which is ftp encrypted with ssl/tls) it points you to the user's homedir you logged in with, in this case root.

So that is fine.

Depending on what you want to do (how specific these "moves" are and how often you need to repeat / sync it) you might either think about user based ftp(s) or you check if rsync can help you here.