Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 6 Administrator's Guide

Restricting Content Publication

In some situations a system administrator may want to restrict which user accounts are able to publish content by means of user document directories. To restrict a user’s publishing rights, add a trailing slash to the user’s home directory path in the /etc/passwd file:

jdoe::1234:1234:John Doe:/home/jdoe:/bin/sh

becomes:

jdoe::1234:1234:John Doe:/home/jdoe/:/bin/sh

After you make this modification, Web Server will not serve pages from this user’s directory. The browser requesting the URI receives a “404 File Not Found” error and a 404 error will be logged to the web server access log. No error will be recorded to the errors log.

If, at a later time, you decide to allow this user to publish content, remove the trailing slash from the /etc/passwd entry, then restart the web server.