[gollem] Issues with SQL/home & horde_vfs

[Patrick McIntire]

Hey Everyone,

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction for an answer 
to a strange problem arising when trying to configure Gollem for my 
box.  First the config details:

Horde: 3.0.4
Gollem: 1.0-RC1
PHP: 4.3.10
MySQL: 11.18 (3.23.58 for redhat)

backends.php:

// This backend specifies a home directory and root directory in a SQL vfs.
$backends['sqlhome'] = array(
    'name' => 'SQL Server with home',
    'driver' => 'sql',
    'preferred' => '',
    'hordeauth' => false,

    'params' => array_merge($GLOBALS['conf']['sql'], array('table' => 
'horde_vfs')),

    'loginparams' => array(),
    'root' => '/home',
    'home' => '/home/' . Auth::getAuth(),
    'attributes' => array('type', 'name', 'download', 'modified', 
'size', 'permission', 'owner', 'group'),
);

The Problem:

I'm using IMP and IMAP to validate users, so everyone who logs in looks 
something like "user at example.com", so essentially Auth::getAuth() = 
user at example.com.

What's happening is upon selecting File Manager and descending into 
Gollem, the current directory is displayed as "[root]/user at example.com", 
which is correct according to backends.php.  The problem is that this 
directory does not exist and is not being created by Gollem, so the 
table horde_vfs in SQL is empty.

When attempting to upload a file to this default directory, it does 
exactly what's expected (as there is no actual directory): it errs as 
"[root]/user at example.com directory does not exist." and does not upload 
the file.

The fix I've found to this is to change to the [root] directory and 
create a directory called "user at example.com" either in Gollem, or in SQL 
itself.  All goes well, and when attempting to upload the file again, 
it's saved accordingly.

At this point, only two records exist in horde_vfs: the one for 
"user at example.com" and the one for (let's say) "blah.pdf" in the 
user at example.com directory.

So, let's move on...

Let's say another user (user2 at example.com) logs into Horde, and into 
Gollem.  Again, the problem repeats.  A directory has to be created in 
[root] for "user2 at example.com" through Gollem or SQL.  Upload commences, 
and everything seems fine.

HOWEVER, now two directories for users exist in [root], and as things 
are configured, "user" can access both user@ and user2@ directories with 
full access.  Similarily, "user2" can access both user2@ and user@ 
directories will full access.  This doesn't seem quite secure, so as a 
ghetto chroot, I locked them into their home directory by doing this in 
backends.php:

    'root' => '/home/' . Auth::getAuth(),
    'home' => '/home/' . Auth::getAuth(),

This now makes the default and most base directory the user can access 
their actual respective directories.

However, the problem now is that there is no way in Gollem to do 
anything with another users directory..

As an example let's say that user3 now logs in.  Becuse there is no 
user3 at example.com defined in the horde_vfs table, they'll be able to do 
nothing in Gollem because they're locked into a directory that doesn't 
really exist.

So, I can fix this by going into SQL and creating a record for user3@'s 
base directory.  But I really don't want to do this for every new mail 
account that I set up on my server.


So, that brings me to my main questions:

1.  Why isn't Gollem creating these base directories if they aren't present?
2.  Is defining root & home as their directories as secure as I can ger 
here using vfs?
3.  From what it sounds like, do I have any idea of what I'm doing?

Any tips, suggestions, pointers to bug fixes, etc. will be wholly 
appreciated.

Thanks!