Question

Ownership problems when uploading files through php

Asked by: vibale

Hi,

I run apache2 and php and have a site that has an upload function which is used to upload pictures.

The problem is, when the files are uploaded, the owner and group are both set to apache, how can I change this so that I can specify who the owner and group are as it causes problems with our current backup system

Thanks

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Asked On
2004-09-02 at 08:16:27ID21116894
Tags

php

,

apache

Topic

Apache Web Server

Participating Experts
3
Points
250
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: TomDavidsonPosted on 2004-09-02 at 08:46:34ID: 11964784

The easiest (but not most secure way) would be to chmod the file after uploading it [http://www.php.net/chmod].

Alternatively you could use the suexec mechanism of su_php to have all your scripts running as the user and group that you specify.

 

by: pat5starPosted on 2004-09-02 at 10:45:24ID: 11966095

TomDavidson's suggestion of suexec is the best solution but can be a little tricky. An ugly hack but something that will work quickly is to run a cron job as root every so often (say every hour, or whatever works best for you) that chown's the upload directory:

10 * * * * /bin/chown user:user /path/to/your/upload/directory/*

-Pat

 

by: samriPosted on 2004-09-03 at 04:45:29ID: 11971678

i kinda like Pat'5star suggestion for some reason.  chmod deal with filesystem permission.  that way, let the os deal with it.  clean.  if (IMHO) done on apache, it would create another "items" to deal with.

Let apache do the web stuff, and os do the file-stuff.  keep it simple!

BUT TomDavidson suggestion should work just fine -- with some effort!.

Or another approach is to fix your current backup system -- as it sounds rather odd to me.

 

by: vibalePosted on 2004-09-03 at 04:51:16ID: 11971741

why isnt using the chmod php function secure?

I am trying to use it but I am getting the following error:


Warning: chown(): Operation not permitted in /home/httpd/vhosts/sitename/system/admin_global.php on line 139

Warning: chgrp(): Operation not permitted in /home/httpd/vhosts/sitename/system/admin_global.php on line 140

 

by: samriPosted on 2004-09-03 at 06:09:32ID: 11972355

vibale,

to be honest, I do not have much experience on php.  however, my note is just based on my past experience that it is best to get a component to do what the job that it's best for.  And specific to this case, I would believe that chmod stuff would be very straightforward to be done at OS level.

Did some ckecup on PHP forum --
http://www.phpbuilder.com/lists/php-general/2001112/1397.php

And yes, it goes back to the fact that apache process is running under a user "Apache" (or "http"), and not root.  In this case, it would not be possible to do the chown and chgrp to other user.  I am not sure how if there is any facility in PHP that could be enabled to allow this.  But one thing that you could try would be getting apache to run as root -- then the chown and chgrp in php should work.  However, from my past experience, getting apache to run as root would be a living-nightmare.  messy.

another option is suExec! http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/suexec.html  Then again, even suExec would not let you switch id to root.  Other userid would be possible.

Looking at the complexity, I would still recommend the cron thing.  Add the line to your root crontab and you are done.  Don't worry about file locking, what happens if the user uploaded file after the cron runs (since you practically could run the cron every minute -- if you need to!).

hope this would help.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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