Newbie - question regarding file permissions

[babacoool]

Hello,

I'm quite new in Linux so please be indulgent ...
Maybe my question is completly stupid but anyway...

I installed an SuSE linux server running a packet sniffer like ethereal witch generates every hour log files. This software is launched with help of cronjob as root.

"ps -ef" show you that the process is running as root (user and group).
The log files also are created as root (user and group); I suppose this is normal like this.

Here is the problem:

I try to access those generated logfiles from windows network (samba is of course on linux pc). I can see/browse all the generated files but I cannot open them;file permission is: rw- --- --- means only root can read them!!!!

If I do a manuall chmod 777 on those file, I can of course open the files but I would like that the files are created automaticly with r/w rights for all users.

I tried to change the owner/group of the on the folder containing the log files and also to set the SGID attribute (like described on the tread "files permissions").
The files are now generated as owner root but the group is now the same than the folder one; permissions are still the same: rw- --- ---.
What do I have to change the generate these files with permissions r/w for all users ?

Thank you

[Jeshua]

Have you tried logging on as root and then changing the permissions?

[likwid]

As he's said he's already done that. This sounds like a security feature of ethereal- that is creating the log files as 600. Afterall, you probably don't want a regular user looking at packet sniff dumps of your network. I would look into ethereal documentation on this.

One question though- do all files on the system get created with permissions 600?

[babacoool]

I will check in Ethereal doc to see if I can find something. What I can also do is a cronjob changing the permissions. Concerning the question if system creates all files with permission, I have to check this out.

[DigitalVampire]

i'm not familiar with ethereal, but perhaps it has something in its config file where you declare the permissions when a file is created. For example, in samba .conf, you would add "create mask = 0xxx", and it would set those permissions whenever a new file is created under a windows or linux machine. This is just for reference, maybe its similar.

[anomie]

I don't use ethereal (instead I use tcpdump), but you need to be root in order to put an interface into promiscuous mode. That means that when the savefile gets created, it's going to be owned by root, and with permissions based on root's umask.

Having a later stage of your cronjob change the permissions to what you need is probably the simplest way to do what you want.

Be careful with that - potentially personal / sensitive data.

[babacoool]

I think I will go for the cronjob solution. Thanks to all of you