FTPS. How to upload to a Home Folder only?

Question

Ubuntu 20.04, server.

Wanted to configure the FTPS following instructions: https://devanswers.co/install-ftp-server-vsftpd-ubuntu-20-04/

Did all actions and got error with FileZilla: Response: 500 OOPS: cannot change directory:/var/www

The problem is I did the Step 4, method #1 firstly:

sudo usermod -d /var/www ftpuser
sudo chown ftpuser:ftpuser /var/www/html

After that I did Step 4, method #2

sudo mkdir /home/ftpuser/ftp
sudo chown nobody:nogroup /home/ftpuser/ftp

sudo chmod a-w /home/ftpuser/ftp
sudo mkdir /home/ftpuser/ftp/files
sudo chown ftpuser:ftpuser /home/ftpuser/ftp/files

Only 1 method should be done. This is my mistake. I'm quite new with Ubuntu server, my apologies for stupid questions. How to upload to a Home Folder only? (Method #2) The problem is 2 lines I did before, as I understand:

sudo usermod -d /var/www ftpuser
sudo chown ftpuser:ftpuser /var/www/html

Answer 1

You should be able to change the home directory back and reverse the first two lines with:

sudo usermod -d /home/ftpuser ftpuser
sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www

usermod -d sets the home folder for a user.

When configuring vsftpd you may also need to edit the /etc/vsftpd.conf file.

Change the line:

local_root=/fake/path

To:

local_root=/home/$USER/ftp/files

This should change the root directory to the path created in your example.