"Easy" FTP acces for Google Compute Engine?

Question

I'm setting up hosting on the Google Compute Engine with a LEMP stack, and from time to time the need arises to allow a third-party developer access to the server.

To have to explain to every customer service how the gcloud tool installs and configures is simply not done. I recently found that a simple ssh user@[ipadress] can work, but I'm not sure what the proper workflow is to add the keys to the VM first.

My question is, what is the best way to manage this? And/or is there a way to just generate a basic FTP user (without any need for SSH keys) to give someone temporary access to the fileserver?

Answer 1

I think you can "fake" a FTP client by using Google Cloud Storage. I imagine the steps would be:

• create a new bucket
• mount that bucket and it will appear as a folder on that machine
• point the web server to serve from that folder
• finally, create a new user that will have read-write access only to that bucket. They can now login and use the web UI for uploading and managing the files.

Answer 2

You can use CrossFTP or CloudBerry both will work like FTP client.