permissions for pictures and folders

[Ryan Rockey]

I am unable to modify comments in my gallery because the program isn't able to create a  _folder.desc file in the newly added folder of pictures.  I am not sure which user needs (w) access for this file to be created and I am not 100% sure about the best way to give this user permission. I would like the feature of adding comments but don't want to create any security holes on my web server. Currently each user with a gallery is made the owner of the files in their respective gallery and the users group and everyone gets (rx) permissions.

Any advice and/or best practice for assigning the needed permissions for the comments feature to work is greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,
-RRR

P.S.
Sorry if this topic has been covered.  I looked for a previous post but couldn't find one.

[Nobody/Anonymous]

You don't mention in what environment you are using your gallery.

I assume you are running Apache but in fact it doesn't matter.
- Find out via which user Apache is running (user nobody, group nobody ?). You can find this in httpd.conf. Also: if you issue the command "top", which gives you (among others) an overview of your processes and who owns/runs them, you can find out who runs/owns the httpd/Apache deamon(s).
- Add this user to the users group.

regards,
Harry

[Ryan Rockey]

"I assume you are running Apache but in fact it doesn't matter. "
I am indeed running Apache. The user that Apache runs under is apache.

Thanks for your guidance Harry, I was able to reach a solution that works even if it makes me feel a bit uneasy.  What I ended up doing is chgrp apache * for all gallery folders. then gave the group the write permission, chmod 775 *.  This still gives other users on the server the read access via the other permissions and now the apache process has write access via the group permissions.  Problem solved, now comments can be added and phpAutoGallery is working fully featured.

Thanks again Harry,
-Rockey