Safe Mode: Discuss

vaaaska

I'm not sure where to start...I could ask a billion dumb questions or I could just be more to the point. I can't really find very much online except how to turn it off tutorials...

1) What percentage of webhosts leave it turned off? What percentage of large traffic websites leave it turned off? Generally speaking...

2) Does PHP5 deal with the safe mode stuff any more smoothly than 4 (I haven't read anywhere that it does)?

3) Is there a way to work around safe mode restrictions (like the register globals hack we've all seen around here some place)?

I would've asked this in coding, but I went over there first and wondered why so many dumbasses were posting technical questions in the lounge...ummm...yeah...it's been that kind of day.

vaaaska

Bahhh...

Ok, what I think I might understand here is that if a script creates a file or a folder that if the same script tries to read/update/delete/whatever it will have the rights to do so?

I've done some rudimentary experiments with SAFE MODE ON and it works...but I doubt this means much.

How about if somebody writes a tutorial on the meaning and complexities of UID.

😉

Elizabeth

Originally posted by vaaaska
How about if somebody writes a tutorial on the meaning and complexities of UID.

😉

Looks like Weed could do it and probably from his cell phone.

vaaaska

I read that too...haha...

The answer, sort of, that I wanted was there but I wasn't willing to accept it...

http://php.paradoxical.co.uk/manual/en/features.safe-mode.php

Beware that when in safe mode, mkdir creates folders with apache's UID, though the files you create in them are of your script's UID (usually the same as your FTP uid).

What this means is that if you create a folder, you won't be able to remove it, nor to remove any of the files you've created in it (because those operations require the UID to be the same).

Ideally mkdir should create the folder with the script's UID, but this has already been discussed and will not be fixed in the near future.

In the meantime, I would advice NOT to user mkdir in safe mode, as you may end up with folders you can't remove/use.

As far as deleting goes though...perhaps I'll call up a perl script to take care of that. So far though, in my tests on a few servers, I'm ok. I know this doesn't mean much.

Sorry, I know this shouldn't be in this thread anymore. ;(

dalecosp

Originally posted by vaaaska
As far as deleting goes though...perhaps I'll call up a perl script to take care of that. So far though, in my tests on a few servers, I'm ok. I know this doesn't mean much.

Nothing exists quite like root, does it? 🙂

vaaaska

Mod. Rewrite. Allows me to be really lazy about what I was trying to do. 😉