Install openssl and openssh. 
Use ssh to login as your user id,
su to root and do your maintenance work.
This is what I use. Oh yeah ,and use SSH protocol 2 or TLS protocol.
Do not use protocol 1 it is not secure.

You could use password authentication in ssh, but
you should really create a server key and user keys and use 
public key authentication.

You can then also use sftp (which is not really ftp, per se) 
to do secure ftp connections. Telnet and ftp should never be allowed on
an internet site. Unless you are allowing anonymous download only access
to an ftp box (something I am against, generally; I'd rather see secure
anonymous ftp; but then I'm really paranoid; and so am I).

Brian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Seth Dimbert [mailto:s.dimbert@fhmr.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 9:22 AM
> To: KCLUG (E-mail)
> Subject: Permissions Question
> 
> 
> OK - I know I'm missing something.
> 
> I got the Linux Box set up and know that I'm not supposed to 
> use it as root.
> 
> So, I created a login for myself, then another with ownership 
> of the web
> directories.
> 
> But now the box is back with the other servers and I connect to it via
> telnet and ftp. And now, since I want to install FrontPage 
> Extensions, I
> need to upload files to usr/local, which I can't do. Then, to run the
> install script, I'll need to login as root, which I can't do 
> via telnet.
> 
> What am I missing?
> 
> -SD
> 
> 
> 
> majordomo@kclug.org
>