And is it necessary? I've read a bunch of pages on it and I can't for the life of me actually figure it out, as opposed to what apache and just plain old php already do.
1 Answers
It starts php processes as the owner of the .php being executed. Apache + php by default are running as a pre-defined user in the apache config. (typically www-data, apache or httpd). If you have files that are owned by a specific user, or want to setup distinct permissions for multiple users' sites... you can create a user for each site, and set permissions in the directory structure based on each user... rather than ensuring the apache user/group have permissions to access the files.
For example... if I have a php file owned by "bob" and it makes changes in a directory with group/owner set to bob, ... the apache probably can't write to the directory unless the permissions bit-mask gives rwx to the directory and files. With suPHP, the php file is run under "bob"'s account rather than apache's account... and the script can do anything "bob" can.
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Php is reading files as being writable even though CHMOD is set to 555. Could SuPHP be doing that? – Citizen Aug 31 '11 at 18:48
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Absolutely. By default, even if you change the owner's permissions to 0, the owner still maintains full access of the files. – TheCompWiz Aug 31 '11 at 18:52
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Thanks! Doesn't that create a security issue? Is it OK if I remove suphp from the server? – Citizen Sep 01 '11 at 23:33
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It depends on you honestly, in some instances where you want to allow php full access to the most/all files contained within the scope of the user owning the files... or are operating within some sort of jailed apache config... this might be ideal. I personally wouldn't do such. – TheCompWiz Sep 07 '11 at 20:34