Tutorial - Creating a Local Account for an SFTP Server

Owned by
Stonebranch
Last updated: Feb 26, 2024 by
Olivier Michaut
3 min read

In this tutorial, you will:

  • Create an account for a local SFTP server using password authentication.
  • View account details.
  • Verify the connection with an SFTP client
  • Create another account using SSH key authentication.
  • View account details.
  • Verify the connection with an SFTP client

Create a SFTP User for Password Authentication

Step 1

From the UDMG navigation pane, select Management > Servers. The Servers list displays.

Step 2

Select an SFTP server, for example stonebranch-sftp-01.

The server details are populated on the Details tabs:

Step 3

Click the Accounts tab.

Step 4Click the Add Account button.
Step 5

The Account Details displays:

  • In the Name field, enter stonebranch-01.
  • In the Password field, enter any value for instance ChangeMe.

Step 6

Click the Save button.

The account is created and shows in the account list.

Step 7

It's now possible to connect to the SFTP server with this account credentials:

$  sftp -P 4000 stonebranch-01@0.0.0.0
stonebranch-01@0.0.0.0's password:
Connected to 0.0.0.0.
sftp> ls
sftp-01-in

Create a SFTP User for SSH Key Authentication

Step 1Follow the above steps again to create another account stonebranch-sftp-02

If you don't already have a public key, generate a new SSH key for this account, for example:

$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "stonebranch-02" -N "" -f stonebranch-02
Generating public/private ed25519 key pair.
Your identification has been saved in stonebranch-02.
Your public key has been saved in stonebranch-02.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:gNvc9Km/Zoe6b/UEtfD0mIjjhiRO/eYujv/SU4+d8sk stonebranch-02
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ED25519 256]--+
|                 |
|     .      . o  |
|    . ...  . * = |
|     +o+o.o.o = .|
|    .oooS+o. .   |
|      . ..= o .  |
|        .= + * . |
|       .o.O +.=. |
|      .o=%*+ oE  |
+----[SHA256]-----+

Note

The public key must be in OpenSSH format.
The following key types are supported: ed25519, ecdsa, rsa, dss. RSA and DSS are obsolete and not supported by all SFTP software servers and clients.

Step 2From the UDMG navigation pane, select Management > Local Accounts. The Local Accounts list displays.
Step 3Select the SFTP server from the drop-down list, stonebranch-sftp-01.
Step 4

The list of accounts is refreshed with the accounts for that server.

Select the stonebranch-02 account.

The account details are populated in the Details pane

Step 5Click the Certificates tab.
Step 6Click the Add Certificate button.
Step 7

The Certificate Details displays.

  • In the Name field, enter stb-02-pub.
  • In the Public Key field, select enter the user public key, for instance the content of the file stonebranch-02.pub:

The fields can be resized for easier display, simply move up or down the resize grabber in the corner of the field.

Step 8

Click Save.

The SSH key is stored for this account and client connection can be performed with SSH key authentication.

Step 9

It's now possible to connect to the SFTP server with this account private key:

$ sftp -i stonebranch-02 -P 4000 stonebranch-02@0.0.0.0
Connected to 0.0.0.0.
sftp> ls
sftp-01-in