Fresh Install-FTP user connects and authenticates, but no root directory

[Patrick Glenn]

Hello All!

So, we've installed cPanel for the first time on a fresh CentOS 7 VM. We're developing a new website, and have decided to host it locally. We've created an A host record to the development subdomain, which works perfectly and displays the cPanel landing page. We've added in the modules the developer will need, and there's only one thing left to do: give him an FTP login which will directly access htdocs as the root (assuming of course that cPanel keeps the default Apache document root). Easy, right? Nope.

I've tried ProFTPd (currently on) as well as PureFTP. I have added the user into the ftp and proftpd groups manually. The user connects to ftp, authenticates properly, then fails to retrieve the directory listing, timing out and resetting the connection. I have tried everything I can think of, including changing pureftpd.conf with the following: DefaultRoot /usr/local/apache/htdocs instead of the default value, to no avail. There have been no other changes to the default cpanel configuration, other than a chmod of /apache/htdocs to allow all users access.

I'm definitely spinning my wheels at this point, and any help would be greatly appreciated!

/etc/redhat-release:CentOS Linux release 7.2.1511 (Core)
/usr/local/cpanel/version:11.56.0.21
/var/cpanel/envtype:vmware
CPANEL=release
Server version: Apache/2.4.18 (Unix)
Server built: May 18 2016 12:44:09
Cpanel::Easy::Apache v3.32.13 rev9999
PHP 5.5.35 (cli) (built: May 18 2016 12:54:22)
Copyright (c) 1997-2015 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.5.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2015 Zend Technologies
mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.6.30, for Linux (x86_64) using EditLine wrapper

 

[Infopro]

give him an FTP login which will directly access htdocs as the root

You don't put websites there. Is there a reason you're not creating a cPanel account normally?

 

[Patrick Glenn]

The account being used was created through cPanel. There's only one site: site.com which is currently live. I've placed the development server at development.site.com . When I create a user, I have to create it at site.com however, as it won't allow me to make a new account domain the same as the server hostname (development.site.com). I have also tried creating users directly on the server, to see if it made a difference.
Incidentally, where would I find the default site root?

 

[Infopro]

I've placed the development server at development.site.com

Unclear on what you mean by that. When you create new accounts, they're created in the /home/ directory. For example, /home/patrick/

Put another way, once you've created your Package via WHM, and then created your first cPanel account and gave it that Package, you now have your first cPanel account at example.com. With the login details for that cPanel account, you can log into it and create a Sub Domain as it sounds like you want to do, development.example.com

From there you could use the User Manager tool (left side menu in your cPanel, Paper Lantern style) in that cPanel account and give the user an FTP account to access it, and it only.