Posted by The Natural Philosopher on 12/05/07 11:43

Joel Fireman wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:47:11 +0000, The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c>
> wrote:
>
>> Joel Fireman wrote:
>>> On a Linux server, a web page lets users enter items to an order
>>> sheet. When they finish, (besides the mysql db updates) the order data
>>> is emailed to the user as confirmation, a copy is emailed to the
>>> fulfillment people, and two files are written for pickup by a third
>>> party, in the third party's directory.
>>>
>>> Because the files are owned by apache, the third party cannot delete
>>> them, even when they are chmod'ed to 777. I tried to chown() the files
>>> to the third party's user, but no go.
>>>
>> That is correct behavior - only root or the owner can change file
>> ownerships IIRC.
>>
> He (apache) IS the owner... dat's de point...
>
>> And it looks like changing owners doesn't entirely work when when its
>> your file you are giving away..ho hum.. I remember this from somewhere..
>>
>> I'll try and find out the answer..got me irritated.
>>
>> Ah. You cant delete files if you don't have write access to the
>> *directory* the file is in..?
>
> As mentioned elsewhere, yep, the third party ("orders") had had his
> directory ownership changed to root... somewhere along the line... and
> changing it back to orders now does allow him to delete files after
> downloading them. An' dat's good.
>
>> You need to add your user to the group the directory belongs to and set
>> 775 permissions on the DIRECTORY as well, I think.
>
> Setting it to 777 didn't work, so I'm pretty sure 775 won't - nudge,
> nudge... wink, wink... know what I mean?
>
> At this stage, it's mainly for future reference: the functionality is
> there, i.e., the order files are written to a directory owned by
> "orders" and he can ftp 'em down and delete 'em.
>
> ... but I'd still like to figger out why apache can CREATE a file, can
> CHMOD the file, but he can't CHOWN the file and give it to the user
> who actually owns the directory... grrrrr...
>
>
Its just the way that Unix/Linux file perms work..

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