NYCPHP Meetup

[leam at reuel.net]

On Sat, May 07, 2005 at 01:58:34PM -0400, csnyder wrote:
> On 5/7/05, David Mintz <dmintz at davidmintz.org> wrote:
> 
> > Doesn't it seem that the s?ftp cure would have to be coded with the utmost
> > care or it might be worse than the disease, especially on a shared host?
> > For example, if username/password are embedded in PHP scripts that
> > themselves are world-readable... It would be interesting to see an example
> > or psuedocode/outline showing an implementation.
> 
> You are exactly right. 
> 
> It depends on which is more distasteful in a given situation:
> world-writeable directories and files, or the possibility that another
> user will discover the (s)ftp password embedded in a configuration
> file. On a shared host, and particularly for a cache, it's probably
> preferable to have nobody own the files then to risk exposing your
> password to all other scripts on the box.
> 
> But for the caching example, the workaround could be that you render
> the pages on a local server that you control, which then (s)ftps them
> to a shared host that has a public address and scads of bandwidth. Not
> unlike Blogger, really.
> 
> A better but more complex workaround could be that files are uploaded
> to a world-writeable directory that works as a drop box. A cron job,
> running as you, could check the drop box for new files now and then,
> and copy them to a normal directory with correct ownership and
> permissions. It should compare the file with a hash stored in a
> database to ensure that the file wasn't modified by someone else in
> the meantime. The webserver will need to clean up the drop box
> directory, since you won't be able to delete files owned by nobody.
> 
> Three parts to that, but I think it solves most of the problems
> without storing a password or implicitly trusting what are, for all
> practical purposes, world-writeable files.
> 
> ----
> Chris Snyder
> http://chxo.com/

Well, it looks like I'll have to apologize to the hosting company for assuming the "write them as my user" was the norm. I'm a bit baffled becuase it *used* to do so, but...

The solution for me will be to let "nobody" write the files in the "holding tank" and leave them as that ownership in case someone needs to edit the file by re-entering it on the form. I will scp (easier to script than sftp) them to my local host where I have root and can edit the ownership/files at my leisure and then put them back on the remote host in the directory where they belong.

Since I own the holding directory I can delete the files when I'm done with them.

Thanks all!

leam