I can read from a file, but can't write to the file

DonkaWechico

Okay, there are two servers I'm working with: 1) My host server (PHP v.4.3.8) and 2) the company's server (PHP v.4.3.3). On the company server, I can read from a file, but can't write to the file. In other words:

is_readable($file) = true
is_writable($file) = false

But when I run the code on my server, it works fine. Safe mode is OFF. I tried chmod 0600 on my server and it worked, but it doesn't work on company server. I've yet to try 0777 (I have to send files to another employee to upload so it takes awhile to see if anything works.) So here are my questions:

If chmod 0777 works, what security problems does that create? What I need is once a regular web user visits a php page, a file is written to. What chmod mode should I use to allow that, and minimize security risks?

If chmod 0777 doesn't work, where should I go from there? What other problems might there be?

I'm sorry I didn't wait to see if 0777 worked before posting here, but the deadline is in the next couple of days and I need to be prepared once I get the results of the 0777 test back. Thanks for your help!

hasin

You better try 0706. This may work.

tsinka

Hi,

you could do this:

Look under which user the web server runs and change the owner of the script to that user. Then chmod it to 0600.

Thomas

DonkaWechico

Well, chmod 0777 did nay work, so I suspect no chmod mode alone will work.

As for tsinka's suggestion, I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Could you elaborate, perhaps with some instructions?

Thanks for your help.

**Edit: I assume you mean using the chown command, but how do I determine the user to put into the parameters?

tsinka

telnet or ssh to the server and execute e.g. the command

ps aux |grep httpd

The line(s) printed should contain something like

wwwrun......
or
www........

This is the user. Or open httpd.conf (Apache) and search for the lines that look like e.g.

User wwwrun
Group nogroup

Then execute

chown wwwrun.nogroup filename
chmod 0600 filename

Thomas

DonkaWechico

tsinka, hasin, thank you very much for your help. The guy in charge of the company server fixed our problem I think as you suggested: by assigning an owner to the files. You've been helpful nonetheless. Have a good one!

--Donnie