Dear all
I have installed Openwebmail 1.64 on Mandrake Linux 8.2. This application creates a log file at /var/log with the name openwebmail.log. The application needs that the permission of this log file should be as follows:
owner - root
group - mail
mode - 660
Even though i set the parameters of the file as above, the parameters changes as below after a gap of 25 minutes, automatically, thus preventing the Openwebmail application to write to the /var/log/openwebmail.log file.
owner - root
group - root
mode - 640
When you load this application and it starts up, does it create the log file or do you create the log file at the beginning?
If the program creates the log file, then you should have a configuration in the file that you need to look at.
If you must create the file, are you root when you do this? Most logfiles on my system are root:root owner:group.
Try to find a config related to the application that will allow you to specify the log file.
Unless you have already done this, as root, try "chown root:mail mylogfile" and "chmod 660".
also if you have permission to read in directory, and write. but not permission to write to file, then you can issue a compress on the file as the other user, when you uncopmress (as other user, it you will have ownership. id s
Dear Kelam
The application requires of the user to create the log file - and hence i do. When i create the log file openwebmail.log in the directory /var/log i am as a superuser. The question is how the permissions get changed automatically ? I wonder if there is any security mechanism of the Linux OS which make this change ? Irrespective of the no. of times i change the permission and mode of the file, they get changed automatically after 25 minutes.
I've checked the configuration file. The configuration file just has an indication to the path of the log file and nothing more related to the permissions and mode. Otherwise, the scripts have been wirtten in Perl script about which i don't have any idea at all.
Kindly help me.
Thanks & regards
Sounds like you have either a daemon or a cron job that is doing this.
If you can't find where this is running from you should have a cron log. It might be under /var/adm/cron/log. This file will tell you what is running from cron, if it doesn't appear obvious in the crontab.
OR if you can change the location of the logfile, I would try that also.
BTW, when you loaded this app, did it give you any options to set? like where the logfile goes, what the parms are, etc...
Hope this helps...
Dear Kelam
My log file is available at /var/log/cron. It does execute three files at /ect/cron.hourly. But none are related to this logfile /var/log/openwebmail.log. One msec command is executed, but these 2 files and 1 command are executed hourly and not for every 30 minutes.
Even if i remove the log file, the moment i execute the application which is Openwebmail, the logfile is created by the application. After 30 min. gap the permission of group changes to 'root' from mail and mode from '0660' to '0640', which were the permissions and mode when the file was created automatically.
Now, if the change the path of the logfile to a different directory, i am able to login, but while logging out, the application generates the error 'Could not open <log-file-path>/openwebmail.log'.
During the installation of this application there were no questions asked. Options can be altered in the config file wherein i had changed the path of the config file.
How to go ahead ? I can create cron entry so that it runs every 25 minutes to circumvent this problem. But, the question is why and how this occurs ?
Thanks Kelam.
That is a good workaround. However, I would set it to fire off every 5 minutes.
1,6,11,16,21, etc... * * * * chmod 660 logfile
One other thing, in HPUX in the CDE or TUI (text user interface) we can manage logfiles. Maybe you have a tool that manages logfiles from an OS perspective, like where they are, permissions etc ...
Do you have anything like this?