[TriLUG] SMB, fstab, php/apache user access?

[Joel Ebel]

Try adding uid=apache to your fstab line.  A similar gid= options exists 
if you so choose.  That will make all the files appear as owned by the 
apache user, and should allow that user to write to it.  man smbmount 
should show you lots of other options that might be useful too.

Joel

David McDowell wrote:
> In my current setup, I have a RH flavored linux distro.  I have the
> following line in my /etc/fstab which mounts a share folder on a
> windows network to the mnt point so that an rsync cron.d job will run.
>  The job successfully rsync's my complete web directory to the share
> location where the backup tapes in the Microsoft environment can grab
> the files.  The .credfile has the Microsoft share's username and
> password for auth by the Microsoft machine to the share.  Everything
> here works great.  Root has the mount, root runs the cron.d, mount
> works, script works, all is happy.
> 
> //SERVER/ShareName /mnt/webbackup smbfs credentials=/path/to/.credfile 0 0
> 
> Now is where I'm a bit confused, maybe just syntax related.  The
> /etc/fstab line above connects to the Microsoft share as user foo,
> password bar, just as the .credfile states it should.  As the root
> user on the linux box, I can make directories, cp files, mv files,
> delete files, basically everything works perfectly as I said.  So this
> does not appear to be a permissions issue with the Microsoft share.  I
> believe where I'm going is bumping into problems with the way other
> users on the linux box talk to the share.  Here's what I mean.
> 
> I am creating a web app using PHP 4.x on Apache 2.x on this linux box.
>  The PHP is accepting uploaded files, and the PHP path for placement
> of those uploaded files is /mnt/webbackup/ and any folders and files
> structure that I create with the app should be able to be placed
> there.  As many of you know, httpd doesn't run as root.  It runs as
> apache by default.  So it would seem that the local apache user on
> this linux box is unable to use the share created in the /etc/fstab.
> 
> With the share umounted, I tried changing ownership and perms of the
> /mnt/webbackup mount point.  But, whenever I run mount -a to test the
> line from /etc/fstab, it never fails to change back to:
> drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 24567 Feb 28 18:38 webbackup
> No amount of chmod, chown seem to change the mount point once the
> mount is established either.
> 
> So, how do I make this mount point usable by a regular user such as
> apache, yet still allow it to be in /etc/fstab (for automation
> purposes in case of reboot due to new kernel, UPS failure, etc.)
> 
> After the smbfs, do I need rw,apache,credentials=/path/to/.credfile to
> give the apache user read/write access?  This is what I'm getting out
> of the first few google hits.  Something else I'm reading says:
> To enable non root user to mount smb shares you must set smbmnt setuid
> Here's how
> # cd /usr/lib/samba/classic
> # chmod +s smbmnt
> 
> which I think is from Solaris?  I find this equiv in samba 3.x:
> chmod +s /usr/bin/smbmnt
> I think... so can the share still be connected using my current
> /etc/fstab and then used by the apache user after that from the PHP
> web app?
> 
> Thanks,
> David McD