It *can* be a lilttle bit confusing, but the information *is* in the wiki; it's just scatterred over a few places and can be hard to pull together in one place.

I think it will help you understand the issues better if you start with the idea that (absent some *major* and *highly technical* workarounds - not recommended for most "new users"), every directory, and file on the DH Debian Linux system has *one* and *only one* owner. The reason you are running into troubles is that your user *does not own* the directoy/files of the "ftp" user.

In reply to:

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how do i get that user to access that folder without accessing anything else?

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You have already figured out how to do that, as you indicated - the problem (which I think you discovered, is that now "you" can't "conveniently' get at those files without logging on as "his FTP user".

In reply to:

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i can get the ftp user to upload to a user ftp account but its just floating in nothing and i can't seem to see that account on my domain

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The files are not "just floating in nothing", they are in the directory that *his "ftp user" owns, and you are correct that "You" (your user) will *not* be able to see "his" (ftp user) files from within "your" account.

THere *is* a better way to deal with this. I think the best way to do what you want is to set up an "uploads" directory (kinda like you have done) but keep that directory under *your* user. You can then use a script that allows another (or several) users to upload files into that directory, but "you" will own them, and can copy/rename/etc them to your heart's content, becuase the "script" that uploaded the files runs as "you" (thanks to suexec, if you want to "read up") and you "own" that directory.

Several of the "one-click" installs have "file upload" capabililty (Wordpress, ActiveCollab, PhPBB), but those may be over-kill for what you need.

Some users install a simple "upload a file" script to allow users to do this.

Other users trying to do what you describe, use a "filemanager" type of script that they install in the sub-directory desired to allow this functionality. Many of these are available at "hotscripts.com", and they are generall easy to set-up if you read the documentation carefully. The main thing you will need to decide before selecting such a script, is whether you want multiple users to share the same user/password to ge to that "upload/filemanager" function, or whether you need some more sophisticated method to allow seperate users/password, and closer controls of the uploaded files.

--rlparker