[imp] user "nobody"

Rick Stevens rstevens@publichost.com
Mon, 11 Dec 2000 18:21:29 -0800


intellinet IMAP wrote:

> Also you mentioned running apache chrooted, what does that mean exactly?
> And how do I do it?

I meant to answer this one in the last posting.  "chroot" means that
when apache gets run, the environment is set up so that the Apache
user's home directory appears to be the root of the file system.

So if Apache is to run as user "nobody", then just before it's run,
the system does a "chroot(1)" to the home directory of user nobody,
and runs apache from there.  This prevents anything running under
apache from seeing ANYTHING in the filesystem above the nobody user's
home directory.  Just like the anonymous FTP user (which is also set
up as a "chrooted jail").

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- Rick Stevens, CTO, PublicHost, Inc.        rstevens@publichost.com -
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