topic Re: Wrong file owner in Operating System - OpenVMS

Wrong file owner

Antoniov. — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 06:00:50 GMT

Hello Guys,
after long time I come back to VMS.
My question: how the user JULY creates files that are owned by USER?
Details:
- Open VMS V8.3 - I64
- JULY and USER are two valid usernames
- JULY and USER have two different UID
- JULY uses an application written by me
- Files are created by 'fopen' of standard C library
- All other users create their own files

Somebody has some idea?

TIA

Antonio

Re: Wrong file owner

Steven Schweda — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 06:13:46 GMT

> - Files are created [...]

Created where? Who owns that directory?

help directory /security

Re: Wrong file owner

Jan van den Ende — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 06:39:12 GMT

Antonio,

Welcome back!

In combination with Steven's question:
What privileges has JULY got?

Files ceated by users with SYSPRV (or GRPPRV if groupUIC matches) by default get parent DIR's ownership.

hth

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Wrong file owner

Antoniov. — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:13:08 GMT

Hello,
thanks for help.
I checked for required informations.
The owner of the parent dir is 'USER'.
JULY has all privileges so I suppose she creates file with directory owner.
Now I change security and I'll report you.

Antonio

Re: Wrong file owner

Antoniov. — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:21:08 GMT

Hi Jan,
your suggestion was right. Solution found.
Usually my user have minimal privileges.
I pleased thank you with 10 pts.

Antonio

Re: Wrong file owner

John Gillings — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:12:35 GMT

Antonio,

Have a look at the "Flowchart of File Creation", Figure 8-1 in HP OpenVMS Guide to System Security.

It explains how access, ownership and protection are determined when creating a file. Ownership privileges are the dangerous thing here, one reason it's never a good idea to leave high privileges enabled.

Curiously, there are cases where higher privilege CAUSES a NOPRIV error because a file is created with the "wrong" owner.