[ale] Access problems

[Ben Phillips]

On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, denethor wrote:

> Hi all. this is the first time i posted to this list, I am running linux
> light on my server at work

Haven't heard of that, but I'm assuming it bears at least some resemblance
to what I've got.  (slackware 3.2)

> I have
> two coders in the states who needs write access to the source code in
> order to better the mud. My problem arises in that I can't seem to give
> them access other than read only.

First of all, I think what you want to do is add them to a group.  Add
this line to the file /etc/group:

mudcoders::###:programmer1,programmer2

...where the programmers are the usernames of your two guys, and ### is a
group ID number not used by any of the other groups in the file you're
looking at.  While you're at it, you'll probably want to add yourself to
that list of users ("...programmer2,yourusername") unless you never ever
plan to touch mud code.  If you don't add yourself, then you may not be
able to edit files your coders create themselves without going into
superuser mode (that's what su does).  Which would be silly.

> I want a complete directory, which has sub-directories in it,
> with files in those subdirectories, to have write access for my friends
> in the states. the command I give is
> 
> chmod a+rwx /home/dist
> 
> the directory I want access to is the dist dir.

The command to give read/write access to everything in the tree
recursively is:

    chmod -R g+rwX /home/dist

This should give the right permissions to everything in the tree, but
you're granting these permissions only to the GROUP associated with all
the files in that tree.  Which means you need to chown the files to the
right group.

    chown -R yourusername:mudcoders /home/dist

This will give ownership of all the files to yourusername and allow
anyone in the group mudcoders to access the files.

This way, if a third coder wants to jump on board, all you have to do is
give them an account and add their username to the list in /etc/group.

And BTW, the first command you said you were running was granting all
permissions to all users, but since you didn't add the -R option it wasn't
recursive.  Meaning you only set those permissions for that one directory,
and not (I don't think) to any of the files or subdirectories in it.  You
should probably undo what you did unless you really want ALL users to 
have write access to that directory.  Try:

    chmod a-w /home/dist

Happy mudding!


                       Ben Phillips <pynk at cc.gatech.edu>
              Not that I think I'm God.  What a cliche.  I don't
              even want to be God.  I just want to feel like him.
                               - Lee Moler, "Suicide Note"