[TriLUG] Proper way to allowing remote sftp to nginx web server

[Ronald Kelley via TriLUG]

Greetings all.

I need to allow remote sftp access to one of our servers for some web development.  I have setup a chroot sftp environment (per https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SFTP_chroot) but am running into a permissions dilemma and need some advice. 

Everything is working as expected - the user can login via sftp and change to the web server’s root directory.  However, since the UID/GID of the remote user (ie: 9801:9801) does not match the web server’s UID/GID (nginx  1504:1504), the remote user can’t write files to the web server directory.  If I put the user in the same group as nginx, the UID permissions are wrong and the web server has problems.  I was hoping I could fine some sort of UID/GID remapping option for sshd but have not found anything yet.

Short of using nginx’s UID/GID for the remote user in /etc/passwd, how can I get sshd to remap the IDs?  What is the proper security fix?

Thanks in advance.

-Ron