Setting Up Users

Note: This topic describes setting up transfer user accounts with the GUI. If you are setting up users in a terminal, see Setting Up Transfer Users (Terminal).

The Aspera server uses your system accounts to authenticate connections from remote clients. The system users must be added and configured as Aspera transfer users before remote clients can run FASP transfers with the server. When creating transfer users, you may also specify user-specific settings, such as transfer bandwidth, docroot, and file handling.

Follow the steps below to configure a system user account as an Aspera transfer user.

Restrict user permissions with aspshell.
By default, all system users can establish a FASP connection and are only restricted by file permissions. You can restrict the user's file operations through the aspshell, which permits only the following operations:
- Running Aspera uploads and downloads to or from this computer.
- Establishing connections in the application.
- Browsing, listing, creating, renaming, or deleting contents.
These instructions explain one way to change a user account so that it uses the aspshell; there may be other ways to do so on your system.

Open the following file with a text editor:
```
/etc/passwd
```
Add or replace the user's shell with aspshell. For example, to apply aspshell to the user xfer, use the following settings in this file:
```
...
xfer:x:501:501:...:/home/xfer:/bin/aspshell
...
```
Launch the Aspera server as root.
Run the following command as root:
```
# asperascp
```
Click Configuration to open the configuration settings window.
Add a system user to your Aspera server.
In Server Configuration, select the Users tab and click the button to add a new user.
In the Add User dialog, enter the username, then click OK.

Note: Usernames cannot contain the "@" symbol, except when using the user@domain format. For additional information, see Product Limitations.

Set the user's docroot.

You can limit a user's access to a given directory using the document root (docroot). The docroot can be set for individual users, groups, and globally.

Individual user docroot: In the user's Docroot tab (Configuration > Users >username > Docroot), select the Override box for Absolute Path and enter or select an existing path as the user's docroot -- for example, /sandbox/aspera_user_1. Make sure that at least the Read Allowed and Browse Allowed are set to true. When finished, click OK or Apply.

Global docroot: To set up a global docroot, in the Server Configuration window, click the Global tab. In the Docroot tab, select the Override box and enter the docroot into the Absolute Path field. This value will be duplicated in all user settings.

If there is a pattern in the docroot of each user, for example, /sandbox/username, you can use a substitutional string. This allows you to assign an independent docroot to each user without setting it individually for each user.

Substitutional String	Definition	Example
`$(name)`	system user's name	`/sandbox/$(name)`
`$(home)`	system user's home directory	`$(home)/Documents`

Use the substitutional string for the docroot.

Configure other settings for the specific user.

These settings are located in the Docroot, Authorization, Bandwidth, Network, File Handling and Precedence tabs. Follow the hyperlinks in the table below for additional information.

Category	Description
Document Root	The document root settings.
Authorization	Connection permissions, token key, and encryption requirements.
Bandwidth	Incoming and outgoing transfer bandwidth and policy settings.
Network	Network IP, port, and socket buffer settings.
File Handling	File handling settings, such as file block size, overwrite rules, and exclude pattern.