Changin file premissions -perl/cgi

egan007

HI
Im using the following line to change a files permissions from
644 to 646

No success - any suggestions

chmod 0646, $open_file or
die "couldn't chmod $fopen_file to 0646";

I can't seem to change to anything

mneylon

Does it work if you try it via FTP or SSH?

egan007

Yeah - i'm ftp'd to the site (cute) and i can change it to any permissions

mneylon

Are you even getting any error messages on screen or in logs?

daymobrew

Add '$!' to the end of the die message to get the system error message.

chmod 0646, $open_file or
die "couldn't chmod $fopen_file to 0646: $!";

Is $open_file the path to the file or a file handle (returned by open function?, it should be the file path).

egan007

- no errors thrown up
- $open_file is the file path
I have found a way around it anyway so cheers for the help.

Zaltais

I know you say you found a way around it but the problem probably is this:

The user that is trying to change the permissions on the file doesn't have the required permission level itself.

Most apache servers are set up to run as the user 'nobody' or as a user set up just to run the webserver itself (e.g. 'httpd' on RedHat/Fedora or 'www-data' on Debian) if the file is created as '0644' by the root user (for example) then the apache user (which cgi scripts are run as) doesn't have write access to the file, and so can't change it's permissions.

There's a couple of ways around this, but most of them are potentially insecure, so your 'way around it' may actually be the best course of action anyway.

JustHalf

Do you need to change the permissions via this script? Is it possible to change them just using your FTP client?

I'm pretty sure you can get Perl to report the user it is running the script as... this should help in your debugging. This is a *nix machine, right?

BTW, a chmod 646 will make your files world-writable. Is this acceptable to you? If it's on a public server, this usually isn't a very good idea.