Re: LAS 6 - write access to "server" directory

[Jonathan Callahan <callahan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul,

On our system the las/server directory does not need to be wide open.

We have the following users:

  apache  -- Apache server
  webuser -- user for creating web pages

and the following associated groups:

  apache
  webgroup

LAS was installed by webuser in the appropriate directories.

When LAS is accessed on our system, the apache user runs LAS perl
scripts and Ferret.  It is this 'web server user' that must have write
access to the las/server directory.  During the generation of an image
Ferret creates a file named "ferret.jnl" and another named ".gif" 
Whoever is running Ferret (i.e. 'web server user') must be able to
create these files.

Here is some 'ls -l' output showing file ownership and permissions on
our system:

cd $lasroot/las; ls -l

...
-rw-r--r--    1 webuser  webgroup     3725 Oct 10 12:24 README
drwxrwxr-x   16 webuser  apache       4096 Oct 21 15:04 server/
-rwxr-xr-x    1 webuser  webgroup      107 Oct 10 12:25 startserver.sh*
...

The server directory does not need to open write access to the world,
just to the group that apache belongs to.

cd $lasroot/las/server; ls -l

-rw-r--r--    1 webuser  webgroup     9137 Oct 10 12:24
options.xml.20021010
drwxrwxr-x    3 webuser  apache       8192 Oct 21 15:04 output/
-rw-r--r--    1 webuser  webgroup      681 Jul 19 12:12 plotout.tmpl

The same applies to $lasroot/las/server/output where the web server must
put the output file.


I hope this addresses your problems.  Let me know if it doesn't.


-- Jonathan Callahan



Paul Hasenohr wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I installed LAS 6 recently and, in order to succeed, I had to give write
> access to everybody on the server directory (chmod 777).
> At line 188 Ferret.pl checks for write access to "server" directory to
> allow ferret to write in server/output directory.
> 
> Is it possible to change line 188 from
>         die "CGI process needs write access to server directory $output" if ! -w '.';
> to
>         die "CGI process needs write access to server/output directory $output" if
> ! -w './output';
> 
> or does LAS really need write access to all files and subdirectories in the
> server directory?
> 
> It is annoying to give full access to "server".
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Paul Hasenohr