> I'm a Linux teacher at a school for vocational education in the Netherlands. > I use Cyqwin to help my students overcome their fear of the command line by showing them their Windows systems through the eyes of Linux. ... > After a chgrp and chmod on the entire Apache folder, the "conf" directory looks like this: > > drwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 0 28 okt 20:43 . > drwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 0 2 nov 13:10 .. > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 35142 26 okt 18:07 httpd.conf > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 34770 7 okt 23:29 httpd.default.conf > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 13340 3 okt 07:59 magic > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 13340 21 nov 2004 magic.default > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 54599 3 okt 07:59 mime.types > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 54599 17 mrt 2012 mime.types.default > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 9390 5 feb 2013 openssl.cnf > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 11050 3 okt 07:59 ssl.conf > -rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM apache 11030 7 okt 23:29 ssl.default.conf > >My students can now administer Apache without running Cygwin "As administrator".
Your statement may not be quite accurate. The Cygwin Apache instance appears to be running as the "SYSTEM" user since that is the file owner, but your students can administer the files because they are members of the "apache" group. I can't really tell which user id is running your Apache process because I don't know how you are actually starting the Apache process. Most production Apache instances do not run as the "root" user since this is a security risk. If my guess about the Apache process owner is correct, please make your students aware that if someone hacks their Cygwin Apache servers, the hacker may gain the same user access rights as the user id actually running the Apache process. The Apache process owner would normally be a unique user account with no login or access privileges to protect the server from successful attacks (just because your Apache files are owned by "SYSTEM", Apache could be started under another, less privileged, user id for better protection; but it is common practice to have the file owner also be the user id that normally executes the file). It is common to see a "nobody" user as the owner of Apache in production systems. I've spent some time over several years trying to figure out how to get Apache working as a "nobody" user under Cygwin. I've never succeeded in getting it to work properly, and my comments to this board have not yielded an answered. I don't think it is possible to make Apache work this way under Cygwin, but your students should be made aware of this difference. If anyone is aware of how to get Apache working using a restricted "nobody" user id under Cygwin, please respond (or start a new thread). -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple