nixCraft

Hi guys,

Have a question i hope someone can help me with...

Running a vps with with root access...have a client that has asked for shell access...i looked into the "jailed shell" and it seems this is the way to go on a shared server...however it seems he dosent have access to "chown" files under his account. Is there a way around this ..am i missing sumtin ?

appreciate any help

Only root can run chown.

If the files are in his directory he can copy them and delete the originals.

HI cfajohnson

thanks for the reply....yes the files he wants to chown are under his account.

Basically whats happening is, hes running smf (simple machines forum script) and is loosing ownership of files when he installs updates or modifications via the smf admin panel...i think the problem (if u wanna call it that) is that the webserver is running as user nobody.

anything u can suggest would be greatly appreciated.

Have you tried the suggestion I made?

Hi cfajohnson

sorry...missed what u were saying...
is there a command he could run (jailed shell) to copy the files under "nobody" to get them under his userid on the server and then delete the originals that are under "nobody"...

or is this sumtin that would need to be done via ftp / cpanel ?

Thanks again

if chown is not provided in shell jail, use php or perl script via webbrowserto change file permission. Perl example:
chown - perldoc.perl.org

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Vivek Gite
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The same as anywhere else -- assuming access to the commands.

Code:

cp "$file" "$file-mine" &&
 mv "$file-mine" "$file"

Hi nixcraft,

thanks for the reply...ill admit im a little out of my dept here...

Is it possible to do the following...

chown -R user1:user1 /home/user1/public_html/*

upload this into MY ROOT account as a script somehow...would it be possible to call that script via a browser so it executes and corrects the chown problem for him without intervention from me...

So say he installs his mods to his forum...and the files get userid of nobody...he can simply type www.domainname/pathtofile/filename and get it to execute the above chown command ??

If its possible id really appreciate any help you can give it setting this up....

chown doesn't change permissions; it changes ownership, and, on most file systems, it can only be run by root. Wrapping it in a script doesn't change that.

Hi cfajohnson,

u are correct i was after chown command.
I ended up setting up a cron job to run the following

*/1 * * * * chown -R username:username /home/username/public_html/foldername/*

its an acceptable workaround for now...appreciate the pointers and help guys.