asked on

Cannot write to a text file in my cgi-bin folder

Im going crazy guys.

I have a file called hi.txt that I have placed in my cgi-bin folder.

If I place this file in any other location thatn the cgi-bin folder, I can write to it.

I just cant if it is placed in my cgi-bin folder.

I have checked that this file has chmod 0777 permissions, along with the cgi-bin folder itself.

Is this an apache server config issue?

I have changed httpd.conf to include the following...

569 <Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
570 AllowOverride None
571 Options +ExecCGI
572 AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
573 Order allow,deny
574 Allow from all
575 </Directory>

Any help greatly appreciated.

I can execute cgi scripts from this folder, but cannot write to them.

[root@localhost www]# ls -ltra cgi-bin
total 1788
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 370997 Jun 10 18:13 filechucker.cgi
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 370996 Jun 16 04:56 filechucker_focushere.cgi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 276 Jun 16 06:19 focushere_functions.php
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 150127 Jun 16 12:50 filechucker_focushere_prefs.cgi
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 Jun 16 12:52 menu4
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Jun 16 13:17 templates
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 370997 Jun 16 17:29 filechucker.cgi.backup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 149742 Jun 16 17:29 filechucker_prefs.cgi.backup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 151466 Jun 17 08:19 filechucker_prefs.cgi.latest
drwxrwxrwx 8 apache apache 4096 Jun 17 08:39 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 151466 Jun 17 08:43 filechucker_prefs.cgi
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 71 Jun 17 09:45 hi.txt
drwxrwxrwx 4 apache apache 4096 Jun 17 09:45 .

trippy1976

hi.txt is owned by root - what user does your PHP process run as? I.e. if you look at a similar file listing in another directory - is the owner something like "WEB" or still "root"? If your PHP process does not have root permissions that may be the issue.

Simon336697

ASKER

Hi trippy1976,
Mate thank you for your help on this im going nuts.

For this to work, should I be able to do a directory listing through a browser for the cgi-bin folder?

At the moment, i cant do that, even if change the cgi-bin folder to be owned by apache.

Simon336697

ASKER

Other folders are owned by the same user.

Simon336697

ASKER

Is the owner of the php process the same owner who runs apache?

SOLUTION

Tintin

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

trippy1976

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Simon336697

ASKER

Hi trippy, guys,

It is my own server.

Ive tried changing the owner from:

chown -R root.root cgi-bin
chown -R apache.apache cgi-bin

Both dont work on the cgi-bin folder with regards to wrting to hi.txt.
But as soon as I try to write on hi.txt in a different location, it works.

In my question, you can see I have already done an ls on the cgi-bin folder :>)

Simon336697

ASKER

Is the cgi-bin a special folder where different permissions are set on this?

I was thinking there might be a problem with the cgi-bin folder in terms of apache and the httpd.conf file that Im overlooking perhaps?

Simon336697

ASKER

Tintin, the code is php code that writes to a txt file in the cgi-bin folder.
Im getting a Permission denied writing to it.
But the folder and files within the fodler are owned by root....

SOLUTION

Adam314

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Simon336697

ASKER

Adam, just testing your theory now....rebooting my server.

Im wondering guys if it could be because in my httpd.conf file, i have the following setup...

Document Root = /var/www/html

my cgi-bin folder = /var/www/cgi-bin

The cgi-bin folder is OUTSIDE the document root.

Could this be it?

trippy1976

As far as I know, given an appropriate path, PHP can write a file anywhere on the server.

If you are getting a permissions issue, I think that is it.

What I suggested was to write a file NOT in the cgi-bin directory and ls that OTHER directory to see what permissions and owners are set. You should be able to replicate the same.

Have the PHP script write to a path like:
/root/mytest/hi.txt

Then
cd /root/mytest
ls -al

See what the permissions are.

What is the need to have the file in cgi-bin? Have you tried maybe a symlink or other method so that the "file" in cgi-bin is a symlink to file in some alternate, less problematic area?

Also go back one level in your directories and see what the permissions / owners are on the cgi-dir. That could be a snag too.

Simon336697

ASKER

Adam, no luck.
Im checking the apache logs and nothing recorded for it.

View source errors are:

Warning: fopen(../../cgi-bin/hi.txt) [<a href='function.fopen'>function.fopen</a>]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /var/www/html/simeswiki/menu4_it_hware_dell_focusHERE.php on line 42 
 
Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /var/www/html/simeswiki/menu4_it_hware_dell_focusHERE.php on line 43 
 
Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /var/www/html/simeswiki/menu4_it_hware_dell_focusHERE.php on line 44 

Tintin, here is my code....

=========================== /var/www/html/simeswiki/menu4_it_hware_dell_focusHERE.php
See attach code snippet

If I try and go to the following page...

http://192.168.2.100/cgi-bin/
You don't have permission to access /cgi-bin/ on this server.

	<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.oxhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
 <head><!-- Put IE into quirks mode -->
 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="includes/menu.css" />
 <?php
 include("includes/sitewide.php");
 ?>
 <title><?php echo $title ?></title>
 
 <?php
 
 function getFolderPath($filename) {
    $fileparts = explode('_', $filename);
    return '/simeswiki/'.implode(array_slice($fileparts, 1, count($fileparts)-2));
 }
 
 ?>
 
 <?php
 // Part A:
 //Get the folderPath variable for input into /cgi-bin/filechucker_prefs.cgi
 $folderpath = getFolderPath($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']);
 ?>
 
 <?php
 // Part B:
 // With $folderpath, replace in /cgi-bin/filechucker_prefs.cgi
 
 // $lines = file('/var/www/cgi-bin/filechucker_prefs.cgi');
 
 $lines = file('/var/www/cgi-bin/hi.txt');
 foreach($lines as $index => $line) {
   if(trim($line) == '# ooPLACEHOLDERoo #') {
      $lines[$index+1] = '$PREF{uploaded_files_dir} = \''.$folderpath."'\n";
      break;
   }
 }
 
 // $f = fopen('/var/www/cgi-bin/filechucker_prefs.cgi','w');
 
 $f = fopen('/var/www/cgi-bin/hi.txt','w');
 fwrite($f, implode('', $lines));
 fclose($f);
 
 ?>
 
 </head>

Open in new window

Simon336697

ASKER

Trippy,
Thank you mate.
I have done what you said, and the owner was root, and on the parent directories, as they are for cgi-bin.
I think im having an issue writing to the cgi-bin folder through a web page when the cgi-bin folder is outside the document root, but not sure what security other than having the owner of cgi-bin as root, or apache, and its parent folders.
Im stumped.

Simon336697

ASKER

Here is my httpd.conf file (relevant parts )

DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
 
#
# Each directory to which Apache has access can be configured with respect
# to which services and features are allowed and/or disabled in that
# directory (and its subdirectories). 
#
# First, we configure the "default" to be a very restrictive set of 
# features.  
#
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>
 
#
# Note that from this point forward you must specifically allow
# particular features to be enabled - so if something's not working as
# you might expect, make sure that you have specifically enabled it
# below.
#
 
#
# This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to.
#
<Directory "/var/www/html">
 
#
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
# or any combination of:
#   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
# The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
# for more information.
#
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
 
#
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
#   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
    AllowOverride None
 
#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
 
</Directory>
 
#
# UserDir: The name of the directory that is appended onto a user's home
# directory if a ~user request is received.
#
# The path to the end user account 'public_html' directory must be
# accessible to the webserver userid.  This usually means that ~userid
# must have permissions of 711, ~userid/public_html must have permissions
# of 755, and documents contained therein must be world-readable.
# Otherwise, the client will only receive a "403 Forbidden" message.
#
# See also: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/FAQ.html#forbidden
#
<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
    #
    # UserDir is disabled by default since it can confirm the presence
    # of a username on the system (depending on home directory
    # permissions).
    #
    UserDir disable
 
    #
    # To enable requests to /~user/ to serve the user's public_html
    # directory, remove the "UserDir disable" line above, and uncomment
    # the following line instead:
    # 
    #UserDir public_html
 
</IfModule>
 
#
# Control access to UserDir directories.  The following is an example
# for a site where these directories are restricted to read-only.
#
#<Directory /home/*/public_html>
#    AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#    Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec
#    <Limit GET POST OPTIONS>
#        Order allow,deny
#        Allow from all
#    </Limit>
#    <LimitExcept GET POST OPTIONS>
#        Order deny,allow
#        Deny from all
#    </LimitExcept>
#</Directory>
 
#
# DirectoryIndex: sets the file that Apache will serve if a directory
# is requested.
#
# The index.html.var file (a type-map) is used to deliver content-
# negotiated documents.  The MultiViews Option can be used for the 
# same purpose, but it is much slower.
#
DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var
 
#
# AccessFileName: The name of the file to look for in each directory
# for additional configuration directives.  See also the AllowOverride
# directive.
#
AccessFileName .htaccess
 
#
# The following lines prevent .htaccess and .htpasswd files from being 
# viewed by Web clients. 
#
<Files ~ "^\.ht">
    Order allow,deny
    Deny from all
</Files>

Open in new window

Simon336697

ASKER

trippy1976, Tintin, Adam314

Guys thanks so much for your help.

The problem with writing to the cgi-bin folder was the following.....

From a command line, I ran the following...

# getenforce
Enforcing

My redhat server turns out that it is running selinux in enforcing mode.

As soon as I did the following.....

# setenforce 0
then
#getenforce
Permissive

and then service httpd restart.

I could write the cgi-bin folder

Thanks to all of you.