PHP and ownership

[metazai]

Trying to understand something about a LAMP site I'm working on -- slightly related to my last post but a new issue.

How do you determine ownership of a file or directory when it's created using PHP? Is it fixed to the method, or can a specific owner be assigned? Case in point:

My CMS creates directories and files, depending on what's being done. According to a list from the host, the things created have an owner name of httpd:httpd, while the thing that have just been ftp's have an ownername of the domain name, so for privacy purposes I'll just call it domainname:domainname. So now I can't delete, edit, or change permissions unless I write a script to do it, and it gets even worse. They moved the site to another server, and now I can't even seem to do that, I guess because I'm coming from yet another owner name on the new server. DOes the host have to straighten this out? I know there's a chown() function but I don't know much about it except that you have to be a superuser to use it.

Any thoughts?

[Belisarius]

The file is owned by whomever is running the PHP process. If it's created via the web, it's owned by whomever the (in your case) Apache process is running as. That would seem to be httpd:httpd.

The hoster needs to straighten it out. Most hosters allow you to process HTTP request as your user, and if your files got messed up as a result of a move, that's definitely the hoster's screwup.

What you want is something called suexec. It has to be setup by the hoster and will allow anything being run from your account to be run as you.