How to Create Custom Jailed Shell Mounts

Overview

You can create custom jailed shell mounts to let users access additional directories on the server. In cPanel & WHM version 78 and later, you can also allow custom access to files.

Create custom mounts

You can create custom mounts for files and directories.

Important:

Custom mounts are read-only for jailshell users.

Add directories to a custom mount

To add directories to a custom mount, perform the following steps:

  1. Create the /var/cpanel/jailshell-additional-mounts file with your preferred editor.

  2. In this new file, add each directory as an absolute directory path on a separate line. For example: 

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    /usr/local/test1
/usr/local/test2
/usr/local/test3
    Warning:

    Do not use relative paths or append trailing slashes to the directory names. For more information, read the Specifying paths section below.

  3. Save the file.

Add files to a custom mount

To add files to a custom mount, perform the following steps:

  1. Create the /var/cpanel/jailshell-additional-files file with your preferred editor.

  2. In this new file, add each file as an absolute directory path on a separate line. For example: 

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    /usr/local/test1.txt
/usr/local/test2.txt
/usr/local/test3.txt
    Warning:

    Do not use relative paths. For more information, read the Specifying paths section below.

  3. Save the file.

Specifying paths

You cannot use relative paths, and you can’t append a trailing slash to the directory names. For example, if you wish to add the /usr/local/test1 directory, add it in the following format:

/usr/local/test1

Do not enter the path in these formats:

  • test1 — This is a relative path.
  • test1/ — This is a relative path and contains a trailing slash.
  • /usr/local/test1/ — This contains a trailing slash.
  • /usr/localtest1 /usr/local/test2 /usr/local/test3 — These are not on separate lines.
Warning:

If you do not format the file and directory paths correctly, your server may fail.

Unmount a custom mount

Important:

You cannot remove an entry in the /var/cpanel/jailshell-additional-mounts file to unmount a custom mount. To unmount the custom mount, use the umount command.

To unmount the /usr/local/example directory, run the following command, where username represents the cPanel user: 

umount /home/virtfs/username/usr/local/example

The system does not unmount custom mounts when the user logs out of the jailed shell account.