Giving users access to apache

[tranin]

How would I give configuration permissions to a user without giving them the root password. I know this is bad, but I do everything as root, so I can do anything. A regular user account is so restricted in what it can do, it drives me nuts. However, I'm hosting a MUD for a friend, and now he wants to put a webpage on there, and I said thats fine if he can get it working, since I have never used it, and don't have time to figure it out right now, but I dont want to give him my root password. I feel stupid asking this question, because its a breeze to do in windows, but never had to do it on a linux based system. Can I add him to a group that will give him permission to do this? Any assistance is appreciated.

[dylunio]

All you need to do is add the user to the apache group

As root:

usermod -G apache username

this will give them access to files which are in the apache group (which should be the config files etc of apache).

[tranin]

That didn't work. I got back unkown group error. My server runs apache2, I tried the command with both apache and apache2 as the group name, both with the same error.

[dylunio]

Ok, let's create the group useing groupadd

groupadd -f apache

then say you want the group to have access to /etc/apache.conf then do

chgrp /etc/apache.conf

and you can set the permisions the group has over that file with

chmod 770

this wil give the owner (which is root in this example) read (4), write (2), and execute (1), permissions with the first number, the same to the group with the second number, and then no rights to anyone else

[tranin]

That was too easy, I should have been able to figure that out, but oh well

Thanks for you help!

[dylunio]

Glad you got it up and runnig, groups are a very useful thing