Hi I am a programmer and My friend has set up a linux box and given me an account but my user doesn't have permissions to write into the html folder that we point to for the web it's /var/www/html

how do we change my permissions so I can write to that please.


Also I wrote a php script to upload and write files to a directoruy in php works fine but i need to make the permissions on the folder 777 so WWW can write to it
is this an unsafe practice is should it be ok. IE can it be easily hacked because of the 777 permissions I don't understand it all that well

Thanks IN advance for any info.

Trent

Normal user in linux can only write in there home folder "/home/username/"

If you wish to right anywhere else then you need to be logged in as root. This can be done via cammand line using 'su' and typing in your ROOT password.

An easy GUI way to give your self permission to a folder is to log in as root, open the file manager (konqeuror or nautius) and find the folder you wish to access, right click and click on the permissions tab, you can change permissions here.

Any person that does manage to hack your system will be able to access this folder with out having to hack the Root password, kinda like Windows.

Thanks,
Glen

if a friend has given you a user account and would like you to write to a directory you currently have no access to, then although everything Glen says above is correct, it's *really* not the way to go about it.

what your sysadmin should do is set up a group. Add everyone to that group who needs to write to the directory, and then run "chgrp -R <grpname> /path/to/directory".

That way, you can give everyone access to the directory they need without letting them become root, and without giving everyone in the world access.