Permissions

[Shelly]

I have a new server and I have my files up there. The files are in
/var/www/html/. In this directory I have another directory that I created
called "users". I am unable to figure out how to set permissions on this
directory, and what those permissions should be. I am using ShieldHost.

When there is a new user, and he enters his desired name and password, as
part of the process I want to create a small directory tree under "users"
with the username as the top level. I get that I don't have permission to
do that with the mkdir in the code. The line of code is:

mkdir($_SESSION['UserRoot'] . $ss_username, 0755);

where the session variable has the directory path ending in "/".

Any ideas?

Shelly

[Erwin Moller]

Shelly wrote:

<snip>

The OS user Apache is running as does not have permission to
create a directory where you want it to.

Exactly!!!! How do make that possible? That is the $64K question.

1) By finding out which OS user it is that Apache runs as.
2) Making sure the directory in which you want to create files/directories
INCLUDES that user mentioned under 1).
This can be done by opening the directory to:
- everybody (chmod 777), which will surely include the user under 1).
- a group

I think the group-approach is the best.
Create a group called shellyapache, and add user shelly and user apache to
it.

Now create the directory IN WHICH you want to create new directories and
give appropriate filepermission TO THE GROUP shellyapache.

In that way you directory is safe for everybody.

One drawback is that other users on the same machine have access to the same
apache-user (under most configurations) , and they could try to reach this
directory.
If this is a concern to you:
An easy (not state of the art) way to make this more difficult is naming the
directy strange, like HJKGJHFHTGDFHGJ FJH76456546.
Nobody will guess that.
Hope this helps.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

PS: If you need help with groups and such, read the URL from Redhat I sent
you in a previous post.