From owner-freebsd-database  Tue Oct 27 14:01:41 1998
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Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:00:54 -0600
From: Jason McNew <jase@clearsail.net>
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To: database@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: can't open a db file as 'nobody' despite 0666
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I'm using DB_File.pm which is a wrapper for db(3), and for some reason I
can't open any database files if I'm the user 'nobody'.  If I run it as
a normal user (not owner or group member of the file in question), my
program works fine.  But, if I su over to 'nobody', it's instantly
broken.  I checked the db(3) manpage, but I diden't see anything about
it in there.  I also read DB_File.pm's POD docs and still no luck.  The
error I'm getting is "permission denied."

Here is the simplest program I could write that duplicates the problem:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use DB_File;
$db = '/home/jase/test.db';
    tie %urldb, 'DB_File', $db, O_RDONLY, 0666, $DB_BTREE or
die("coulden't open $db: $!");

whereas /home/jase/test.db is -rw-rw-rw-

When I try to do this from a cgi script (apache runs as nobody) it spits
out:

coulden't open /home/jase/test.db: Permission denied at test.pl line 4.

But the same scirpt runs just fine even when I run it as a user in a
different group... except when I su to nobody..

%/usr/local/bin/perl -v

This is perl, version 5.005_51 built for i386-freebsd


I can work around this by making apache run as a different user, but I'd
still like to know why this brakes, and better still, where it needs to
be documented (provided it's not pilot error!) :)


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