I have a Linode VPS server that I have recently setup and am migrating to from Mediatemple, where I have a VPS managed by Plesk. I dislike the Plesk interface and the mess it makes of a lot of things, but appreciated its ability to allow multiple people access to different domains on a server. I have most everything setup the way I would like it, but am having issues with permissions for my domain directories.

I am running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and Apache 2 as my web server. I have domains successfully located in /var/www/vhosts/domainname.com but have to modify files as root in order to add/change files for the domains. I would like to setup access with the following criteria:

1. Each domain can have a user assigned to it (and allow for the same user to manage multiple domains - could even create symlinks in their home folder to their domains)
2. Certain users will have shell access and may be chrooted to the domain directory they control
3. FTP needs to be setup and able to correctly access the domains so that content editors for each domain can upload/download without permissions issues

I am relatively new to linux sysadmin and have searched for a good guide to help solve these issues but haven't been able to find one yet. Thanks in advance for your help.