PHP mkdir and apache ownership

Question

Is there a way to set php running under apache to create folders with the folder owned by the owner of the program that creates it instead of being owned by apache?

Answer 1

Another way is to put the apache user and the "customer users" in a new group. Additional the directory should use the sticky bit SGID so each new file got the group assignment to this new group. This way the webserver and the "customer users" can work with the files without any problems

[17:57] progman@proglap /tmp/test $ ls -al /tmp/test
total 9
drwxrwsr-x  2 root users   48 Apr  1 17:55 .
drwxrwxrwt 36 root root  9264 Apr  1 17:53 ..

As you see the directory got the stick bit SGID and the owner is the "users" group in which I (progman) am. No if another user adds a file the group automatically get set to this group

[17:55] proglap ~ # touch /tmp/test/x

This is executed from root. Now we get:

[17:57] progman@proglap /tmp/test $ ls -la /tmp/test
total 9
drwxrwsr-x  2 root users   72 Apr  1 17:59 .
drwxrwxrwt 36 root root  9264 Apr  1 17:53 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root users    0 Apr  1 17:59 x

As you see the added file is from root, but the group is set to users and this way I can remove it

[18:00] progman@proglap /tmp/test $ rm x
rm: remove write-protected regular empty file `x'? y
[18:01] progman@proglap /tmp/test $ ls -la /tmp/test
total 9
drwxrwsr-x  2 root users   48 Apr  1 18:01 .
drwxrwxrwt 36 root root  9264 Apr  1 17:53 ..

Keep in mind that you still need to change the chmod if you want to edit the file as rw-r--r-- is just group read access. But changing the chmod, maybe even working with umask, is better than dealing with root-access and using chown.