Access rights on root created files

[swisstone]

I have a linux web server running ubuntu 8.1 server edition hosting a basic webpage and ftp (vsftp).

Our accounts department need access to the outside world to transfer data.
As our company policy restricts web access to office users I have created a xming/putty tunnel to the linux box allowing them to open a firefox session on the remote machine and get out to the secure bank sites they need access to. (Its using a different adsl line)

The problem being - The users download reports in adobe PDF format and can view them - but they need to download them to their local machine?

I have created a ftp service using vsftp for them to connect and download the files they can see the files but as they were created using adobe PDF on the linux server they are owned by ROOT. The ftp program does not allow them to download the file (access denied!) even tho it is in their /home/user/ directory?

I have tried the umask 000 command but pdf is always created as rw-------- (access only by root)

how can I make every new pdf file (downloaded by firefox into adobe then save a copy clicked) be saved with access rights to the end user as well as root?

Hope you understand?
Any questions do not hesitate to ask?

many thanks &
Regards,
Tony

[pmcoleman]

I had a similar problem, but different details. It was solved by dealing with the permission levels on the remote server. In other words I had to create a group on the remote machine and add users to it.

Next, I changed the permissions on the directory with chown root:groupname, then chmod 1770 <directory_name> to add the sticky bit on the directory, thereby allowing root and group members to access the directory with read and write permissions, but denying access to others.

You will probably want to make sure that your umask on the remote server is set to automatically deny permissions to file created in the directory. I usually set the umask 027 in these situations, by modifying the appropriate login in shell configuration file for the distribution. You will need to find the correct one. Mine was /etc/profile, and the default is often found set to umask 022. This setting is not very secure on restricted machines.

Maybe this will help to solve your issue...