Chmod()/Chown()... help needed (Linux)

[Quevas]

How to change user and mode of a directory (owner root)?
I try with chown() and chmod(), but the response is always:

Operation not permitted in test.php.

I've to change user by shell to avoid the error.
Maybe I can't change user from root to nobody by code?
Anyone could help me?

Thanks.

[floR]

Nope, not possible. The typical webserver runs with uid nobody and nobody doesn't have root access (needed to change root's permissions. Would be a Bad Thing(tm) as well.

[twopeak]

hmmm, isn't there a command, that allows users of the group admin to have root access just for one session?

Can't remember it though...

[frymaster]

okay.... you can change the directory perms but if you want the file to be read then you need the perms on that too..

chown -R root:root /path/to/dir/
chmod -R 755 /path/to/dir

should change the dir and all the sub dirs and files to

rwxr-x-r-x root root

[floR]

That command doesn't give you root access, it only changes the file permissions and ownership.

Besides, giving a non-root user root access is a Very Bad Thing, even for one session.