2

A bit of a long shot here but thought I'd see if anyone had a fix for this:

I am having an issue whereby the PHP function unlink() is being able to successfully delete a file even though explicit deny NTFS permissions have been applied to the file in question. I have even tried removing all NTFS file permissions and the like - same outcome and it has me stumped.

FACTS

  • I have Apache 2.2.22 running PHP 5.4.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2

  • Apache/PHP are running under user EXODUS\wwwuser, proven by response to 'whoami' at command line from running PHP script - eg:

    echo exec('whoami');

    returns EXODUS\wwwuser

  • The file 'deleteme.txt' is created by a member of the 'BUILTIN\Administrators' group, explicity deny permissions are applied to the file for EXODUS\wwwuser - however, PHP's unlink() function successfully deletes the file.

  • I have tried this same thing by removing permission inheritance on this file, removing all permissions (including SYSTEM), and applying explicit deny 'FULL CONTROL' to EXODUS\wwwuser - guess what, unlink() still deletes the file...

  • EXODUS\wwwuser is a member of BUILTIN\Users, however this doesn't indicate that this would impact the situation.

  • File cannot be deleted by EXODUS\wwwuser when logged in interactively.

  • When files are written by PHP, file owner is 'EXODUS\wwwuser'

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

How would I go about providing folders/files that cannot be deleted in a location via PHP's unlink() that are inside a defined 'open_basedir' area?

I'm using 'open_basedir' to stop scripts tampering with files outside of the declared open_basedir - this seems to be working fine - eg: can't delete files that are outside the location defined by 'open_basedir'.

John Gardeniers
  • 27,844
James Bertschik
  • 21

3 Answers3

1

Hi if PHP is able to delete a file even though the permissions say otherwise. This probably means that the Apache is running as user with Administrator privs.

You can always try to audit the folder in windows to make sure all the child folders permissions are reset if the above isn't the problem.

Richard Dev
  • 219
0

I don't use PHP on Windows, so can't be sure of it's underlying code but when I write any form of delete function the first thing I have it do is to try and remove existing permissions. Just maybe unlink() is doing the same. If you have appropriate logging enabled you should be able to see any such behaviour in the Windows event logs, so check in there.

John Gardeniers
  • 27,844
0

The only way this is possible is if the Apache server is not actually running under the user you say it is. Turn on auditing on that folder and test again to see what user is deleting the file.

Also, who is the owner of the file?

longneck
  • 23,272