[Techtalk] Default umask without login?

[Maureen Young-Seller]

Is it possible to set a default umask for a user whose shell is set to /sbin/nologin?

I have a box that a few far-flung users are using as an ftp drop/exchange for files that are too big to email.  All of them have shells set to /sbin/nologin so they can only ftp to the box.  I wanted to set each of them to have a unique username and then set them into a common group so they could each have access to a default (home) directory that the other users can't access, and to a common (group) folder that they could use to exchange files with each other.  But any files that are created in that group folder have permissions of rwxr-xr-x, which isn't what I want.  

I want the group folder to have write permissions for the group id (rwxrwx--- ideally) so any of the users can create and delete any of the files in the common folder.  As it is, any of them can read/download the files in the common folder, but only a file's creator can delete it, which is somewhat inconvenient.  (Most of these files to be exchanged are of the "please-download-and-then-delete-so-it-isn't-hanging-about-on-the-server" type, but it would be easier if the recipient could delete after downloading, rather than waiting for the creator to get back on and do it.)

So, is there a way to set a default umask for these folks without giving them a login?  (Even if I did give them a login, if I set a umask in .bashrc or .login, would that carry over to an FTP login?)

Or is there an easier way to do this?

Thanks, all.




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