CODEWITHSUNDEEP
webfile-permissions
Pouria P
Pouria P

Reputation: 595

file permissions - who is owner,group,public in a web server

i have read many tutorials about file permissions but all they say is for example "if you don't want others to write to your files, set it to xxx..."
but in a web host, who is who really? there is just a web server (apache) and php and mysql and other programs. there is no "other users". the tutorials said that apache is considered "public". but i have a php scripts wich gets an uploaded file and puts it in "downloads" directory. i set that directory's permission to 744. it means group and public should only be able to "read" and owner has full access. i expected my uploaded file not to be transfered to that directory because of no "write" permission for "public". but the file was there. and more confusing for me was when i tried to download the file, i got a "forbidden" error. i expected to be able to download the file because the public had the "read" permission.

Upvotes: 7

Views: 1102

Answers (1)

Reilly Grant
Reilly Grant

Reputation: 6093

The user this case is the web server itself. Apache is usually running as the user "apache" or "www-data" when it reads and writes files to the server filesystem. Static content should be readable by the server. Upload locations must be writable. Depending on the other users on the system you may consider the web server to be the "other" user and the webmaster account the actual file owner.

Upvotes: 4

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