ftp download umask and file permission issues.

[Gulam Mohiuddin]

I have an automated cron script on HP-UX Server which downloads files from Windows server using ftp.

1. On HP-UX Server my umask is 011 but ftp downloads those files with 044 permission instead of 055, I don’t know why?

2. Now I want those ftp downloaded files to have permission 666 or -rw-rw-rw-
How to achieve this?


Thanks for your anticipated assistance on this issue.

Gulam.

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

ftp doesn't login like a normal user so umask settings for normal login don't apply. In /etc/inetd.conf, there is a -u option for ftpd which controls the creation of files on the server. But the -u option has no control over files that are downloaded. ftp (the program running on the local system) creates files based on the user's current umask, so to create files with 666 permission (always a bad idea since anyone can trash the files), you would start ftp in your script like this:

umask 000
ftp where_ever << EOD
...ftp commands...
EOD

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Gulam,

You might be able to control this in the ftpaccess file. It controls the behavior of the ftp server.

SEP

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Gulam:

Change or add '-u 000' to your 'ftpd' daemon arguments in '/etc/inetd.conf' and restart the 'inetd' daemon.

# ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/lbin/ftpd ftpd -l -u 000 -a

...for example. Then:

# /usr/sbin/inetd -c

See the man pages for 'ftpd(1M)' for more information.

Regards!

...JRF...