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Posted to users@tomcat.apache.org by Rolf Borgen Guescini <r....@ilf-stud.uio.no> on 2002/12/04 17:13:17 UTC

Mutliuser setup

Does anybody know what to do when setting up tomcat on a UNIX environment
for more than one user?

Is the best way to define a directory owned by a group where all the users
belong,and then make contexts in server.xml?

Or is there another way of doing it?

RBG

                                ~\\|//~
                                -(o o)-
               ************oOOOo**(_)**oOOOo************
               *         Rolf Borgen Guescini          *
               *        -----------------------        *
               *                                       *
               *           rolfbg@turing.uio.no        *
               *           niffel@chello.no            *
               *         http://folk.uio.no/rolfbg     *
               *                                       *
               *                                       *
               *             .oooO   Oooo.             *
               **************(   )***(   )**************
		              \ (     ) /
		               \_)   (_/


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Re: Mutliuser setup

Posted by David Brown <dw...@webitplanet.com>.
Rolf Borgen Guescini writes: 

> Does anybody know what to do when setting up tomcat on a UNIX environment
> for more than one user? 
> 
> Is the best way to define a directory owned by a group where all the users
> belong,and then make contexts in server.xml? 
> 
> Or is there another way of doing it? 
> 
> RBG 
> 
>                                 ~\\|//~
>                                 -(o o)-
>                ************oOOOo**(_)**oOOOo************
>                *         Rolf Borgen Guescini          *
>                *        -----------------------        *
>                *                                       *
>                *           rolfbg@turing.uio.no        *
>                *           niffel@chello.no            *
>                *         http://folk.uio.no/rolfbg     *
>                *                                       *
>                *                                       *
>                *             .oooO   Oooo.             *
>                **************(   )***(   )**************
> 		              \ (     ) /
> 		               \_)   (_/ 
> 
> 
> --
> To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org> 
> 
 


Hello Rolf, this is a two edged sword. if u r talking about localhost only 
w/ no public access this is not a problem but just allow each user to have 
their own "<webapps>" directory e.g. 
$CATALALINA_HOME/<user1_webapps,user2_webapps,...>/ all defined in their own 
web.xml files at: $CATALINA_HOME/<someuser_webapps>/WEB-INF. on other edge 
to this sword can be cutting and care is needed if u r mean to run public. 
i'm working on this now and have a infrastructure that would allow users to 
update servlets and jsp's remotely and install webapps using the /manager 
application. i can do this because i have all such accesses under 
"protected" webapp directories and encrypted w/ ssl requiring pam cert and 
user id's and password logins. this is an involved step and an order of 
magnitude of labor over the other sword edge. i have done things this way 
because as many will agree the public internet is a place where nobody's 
sandbox is safe from attack and intrusion. tc vulnerabilities r the same as 
for other services that have public access. if u do mean to offer public 
access then u have choosen a good package. tc has no security defaults but 
has all the tools necessary to harden its public server capabilties 
especially if used w/ apache version 1.3.27 or better. reply w/ more info on 
where u r technically: hardware, os, software services installed, network 
(connection), dns etc. and maybe u will get the attention of the gurus. hope 
this helps, david. 

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Re: Mutliuser setup

Posted by David Brown <dw...@webitplanet.com>.
Rolf Borgen Guescini writes: 

> Does anybody know what to do when setting up tomcat on a UNIX environment
> for more than one user? 
> 
> Is the best way to define a directory owned by a group where all the users
> belong,and then make contexts in server.xml? 
> 
> Or is there another way of doing it? 
> 
> RBG 
> 
>                                 ~\\|//~
>                                 -(o o)-
>                ************oOOOo**(_)**oOOOo************
>                *         Rolf Borgen Guescini          *
>                *        -----------------------        *
>                *                                       *
>                *           rolfbg@turing.uio.no        *
>                *           niffel@chello.no            *
>                *         http://folk.uio.no/rolfbg     *
>                *                                       *
>                *                                       *
>                *             .oooO   Oooo.             *
>                **************(   )***(   )**************
> 		              \ (     ) /
> 		               \_)   (_/ 
> 
> 
> --
> To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org> 
> 

Hello Rolf, d u mean UNIX users or just tc? if u mean just tc u can use the 
RealBase class that defines users and roles. i also assume u mean to use a 
secure login (ssl) and secure webapps page/directories. this is all 
documented in tc "out-of-the-box". preferably, u will want to use JDBCRealm 
and a database (the MemoryRealm would require MD5 or SHA digest of the 
passwords in flat ASCII text files) and not as useful as if the users and 
roles tables in a db (the users and roles tables can be used as fk in other 
tables 4 other process logic uses). each user could have his own webapp 
which is what i'm doing now and it works 4 me. hope this helps, david. 


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RE: Mutliuser setup

Posted by Rolf Borgen Guescini <r....@ilf-stud.uio.no>.
Thanks both to you and David Brown for the quick response ! : )

As this was my first posting to this mailing list, and since I don't have
any experience with posting on such lists, I see that I expressed myself a
little bit inexact. But Jeremy's idea of reading the RUNNING.txt is quit
to the point:

"In many circumstances, it is desirable to have a single copy of a Tomcat 4
binary distribution shared among multiple users on the same server. "

This is what I would like to do:
the os is sparc-sun-solaris2.5 on a sun box - i don't know more about it,
I'm sorry..
My plan was to have the administrator
create a group that would have access to a directory on the server where
each user in that group had their own directories which I could set up as
contexts in server.xml

What I would like to know then is where the best place would be to place
Tomcat since the administrator wants control startups and shutdowns.

the next thing the RUNNING.txt says is:

you must configure a CATALINA_BASE environment variable (in
addition to CATALINA_HOME as described above) that points to a directory
that is unique to your instance

what would be a directory that is unique to my instance ?

could the user directory that the administrator creates be that directory?

since
When you do this, Tomcat 4 will calculate all relative references for
files in the following directories based on the value for CATALINA_BASE
instead of CATALINA_HOME:

* conf - Server configuration files (including server.xml)

* logs - Log and output files

* webapps - Automatically loaded web applications

* work - Temporary working directories for web applications

Whould this solve my task or have I completely gotten it wrong?

Maybe also what David Brown wrote about adresses what might become a
future problem: the service won't be public with a lot of traffic on it,
but the pages would be openly acessible. Since there have been several
attacks on our different servers, security is a hot issue these days, and
I have a hard time finding out how to solve the problem of having to bug
the administrator each time we need the server reset. It would be great if
there was a solution to this problem.

I am grateful for all help I can get in learning this ! : )

Rolf
                                ~\\|//~
                                -(o o)-
               ************oOOOo**(_)**oOOOo************
               *         Rolf Borgen Guescini          *
               *        -----------------------        *
               *                                       *
               *           rolfbg@turing.uio.no        *
               *           niffel@chello.no            *
               *         http://folk.uio.no/rolfbg     *
               *                                       *
               *                                       *
               *             .oooO   Oooo.             *
               **************(   )***(   )**************
		              \ (     ) /
		               \_)   (_/

On Wed, 4 Dec 2002, Jeremy Joslin wrote:

> Start out by looking at #4 on the list here:
> http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.0-doc/RUNNING.txt
>
> Jeremy
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Rolf Borgen Guescini [mailto:r.b.guescini@ilf-stud.uio.no]
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 8:13 AM
> > To: tomcat-user@jakarta.apache.org
> > Subject: Mutliuser setup
> >
> > Does anybody know what to do when setting up tomcat on a UNIX
> environment
> > for more than one user?
> >
> > Is the best way to define a directory owned by a group where all the
> users
> > belong,and then make contexts in server.xml?
> >
> > Or is there another way of doing it?
> >
> > RBG
> >
> >                                 ~\\|//~
> >                                 -(o o)-
> >                ************oOOOo**(_)**oOOOo************
> >                *         Rolf Borgen Guescini          *
> >                *        -----------------------        *
> >                *                                       *
> >                *           rolfbg@turing.uio.no        *
> >                *           niffel@chello.no            *
> >                *         http://folk.uio.no/rolfbg     *
> >                *                                       *
> >                *                                       *
> >                *             .oooO   Oooo.             *
> >                **************(   )***(   )**************
> > 		              \ (     ) /
> > 		               \_)   (_/
> >
> >
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <mailto:tomcat-user-
> > unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org>
> > For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:tomcat-user-
> > help@jakarta.apache.org>
>
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
>
>


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RE: Mutliuser setup

Posted by Jeremy Joslin <je...@spotlife.com>.
Start out by looking at #4 on the list here:
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.0-doc/RUNNING.txt

Jeremy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rolf Borgen Guescini [mailto:r.b.guescini@ilf-stud.uio.no]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 8:13 AM
> To: tomcat-user@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: Mutliuser setup
> 
> Does anybody know what to do when setting up tomcat on a UNIX
environment
> for more than one user?
> 
> Is the best way to define a directory owned by a group where all the
users
> belong,and then make contexts in server.xml?
> 
> Or is there another way of doing it?
> 
> RBG
> 
>                                 ~\\|//~
>                                 -(o o)-
>                ************oOOOo**(_)**oOOOo************
>                *         Rolf Borgen Guescini          *
>                *        -----------------------        *
>                *                                       *
>                *           rolfbg@turing.uio.no        *
>                *           niffel@chello.no            *
>                *         http://folk.uio.no/rolfbg     *
>                *                                       *
>                *                                       *
>                *             .oooO   Oooo.             *
>                **************(   )***(   )**************
> 		              \ (     ) /
> 		               \_)   (_/
> 
> 
> --
> To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <mailto:tomcat-user-
> unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:tomcat-user-
> help@jakarta.apache.org>



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