Problem writing when running script from Postfix mail to script

Xxaxx has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a script which accepts input via email. The content drives the update of a news page on my website.

The script runs fine on old colocated server. Slackware, Apache, Qmail.

On the new server my script receives the input okay, but I can't write to files because of permissions issue.

Apparently qmail was performing a little magic (i.e. I didn't set the config, it just happened to work straight out of the box) such that when an email was passed into a perl script the user was set to be the domain user. Thus the script had all the necessary permissions.

With Postfix I am not so lucky. When the email calls the perl script it is running as a different user which does not have permissions to write.

I've been off in the world of Java for a while and more than a bit rusty on the finer points of perl. I would be most appreciative of a clue about where to look to solve this problem.

Thanks in advance, Claude

Comment on Problem writing when running script from Postfix mail to script

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Re: Problem writing when running script from Postfix mail to script by grinder (Bishop) on Jul 12, 2006 at 06:46 UTC
This is not a Perl problem. Postfix processes run with the minimum privileges required to get the job done. Handing off a message from the Postfix core to an external process is done via the `master.cf` file. You can specify under which account name the process should be run. That should solve your permissions issue. Note that you will require `root` access to edit the file and signal the changes with a `postfix reload`. • another intruder with the mooring in the heart of the Perl	[reply]
Re: Problem writing when running script from Postfix mail to script by Khen1950fx (Canon) on Jul 12, 2006 at 08:11 UTC
I agree with grinder---It's not a Perl problem. To add to what grinder mentioned, see: Postfix Basic Configuration main.cf file format	[reply]
Re: Problem writing when running script from Postfix mail to script by Anonymous Monk on Jul 16, 2006 at 20:39 UTC
Qmail is executing the script as the mailbox owner. Postfix can probably be made to do it, but changing that definitely requires root access and a look in the Postfix docs. Your script is probably running as 'nobody' or a similar non-privileged account. A work around: 1. The email script writes files in a public directory: /tmp/news-update or similar. 2. A cron job is run every 1-5 minutes, as the user who owns the web directory, it reads /tmp/news-updates and incorporate changes.	[reply]