CGI, anydbm.open() and linux file permissions

[Derek Basch]

Hello,

I have a CGI script which uses anydb.open() to create a DBM. However I get this
traceback:

/usr/lib/python2.3/bsddb/__init__.py in
hashopen(file='/var/www/bp/predictor/tools.dbm', flag='c', mode=438,
pgsize=None, ffactor=None, nelem=None, cachesize=None, lorder=None, hflags=0)
190 if ffactor is not None: d.set_h_ffactor(ffactor)
191 if nelem is not None: d.set_h_nelem(nelem)
192 d.open(file, db.DB_HASH, flags, mode)
193 return _DBWithCursor(d)
194
d = <DB object>, d.open = <built-in method open of DB object>, file =
'/var/www/bp/predictor/tools.dbm', global db = <module '_bsddb' from
'/usr/lib/python2.3/lib-dynload/_bsddb.so'>, db.DB_HASH = 2, flags = 65, mode =
438

DBAccessError: (13, 'Permission denied')
args = (13, 'Permission denied')

The permissions on the CGI script (/usr/lib/cgi-bin/evaluator.py) are:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 bpeters bpeters 2446 Jan 11 14:42 evaluator.py

and the permissions on the target DBM creation directory
(/var/www/bp/predictor/) are:

drwxr-xr-x 2 bpeters bpeters 4096 Jan 11 14:45 predictor

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to allow the CGI script to create the DBM
in the target directory? That is short of changing everything to root.

Thanks everyone,
Derek Basch





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[Dan Sommers]

Hello,
I have a CGI script which uses anydb.open() to create a DBM. However I get this
traceback:

/usr/lib/python2.3/bsddb/__init__.py in
hashopen(file='/var/www/bp/predictor/tools.dbm', flag='c', mode=438,
pgsize=None, ffactor=None, nelem=None, cachesize=None, lorder=None, hflags=0)
190 if ffactor is not None: d.set_h_ffactor(ffactor)
191 if nelem is not None: d.set_h_nelem(nelem)
192 d.open(file, db.DB_HASH, flags, mode)
193 return _DBWithCursor(d)
194
d = <DB object>, d.open = <built-in method open of DB object>, file =
'/var/www/bp/predictor/tools.dbm', global db = <module '_bsddb' from
'/usr/lib/python2.3/lib-dynload/_bsddb.so'>, db.DB_HASH = 2, flags = 65, mode =
438

DBAccessError: (13, 'Permission denied')
args = (13, 'Permission denied')

The permissions on the CGI script (/usr/lib/cgi-bin/evaluator.py) are:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 bpeters bpeters 2446 Jan 11 14:42 evaluator.py

and the permissions on the target DBM creation directory
(/var/www/bp/predictor/) are:

drwxr-xr-x 2 bpeters bpeters 4096 Jan 11 14:45 predictor

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to allow the CGI script to create the DBM
in the target directory? That is short of changing everything to root.

Chances are that for security reasons your script probably runs as user
"nobody" or another special user ID set up specifically for running CGI
scripts (rather than your user id). Check your web server's
documentation, or render the output of sys.getuid, sys.geteuid,
sys.getgid, and sys.getedig. One solution is to open up the permissions
of /var/www/bp/predictor; a better solution is to change its owner to
whatever user ID runs your script.

HTH,
Dan