Hi everyone. I'm doing some Webgoat tutorials at the moment and I've run into a weird problem, it seems as though I can't access a file via directory transverse.

On the machine, the following commands / results take place.

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/conf# ls
<files blah blah> tomcat-users.xml
root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/conf# nano tomcat-users.xml (tab auto complete)
Successfully opens file

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/WebGoat/lesson_plans/English# nano ../../../../conf/tomcat-users.xml (confirmed by tab auto complete each stage)
Opens a blank file

Any idea why I cannot open this file directly via transversing? I'm happy to post any further info you may need.

Add an extra . The four leaves you in the webapps directory. Confirm while in the English directory with:

No, definitely the right directory. Tried for the sake of it anyway.

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/WebGoat/lesson_plans/English#

../ goes to

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/WebGoat/lesson_plans#

../../ goes to

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/WebGoat#

../../../ goes to

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps#

../../../../ goes to

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6#

../../../../conf goes to

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/conf#

../../../../conf/tomcat-users.xml should go to

root@owaspbwa:/var/lib/tomcat6/conf/tomcat-users.xml but it doesn't for some reason. Confirmed by tab auto complete on each stage, along with getting the final path name, but it won't let me actually access the file when I enter.

As a exercise I went to /var/lib and opened via nano /tomcat6/conf/tomcat-users.xml and it opened fine. I went to /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps and tried to open via nano ../conf/tomcat-users.xml and it won't let me open there either.

Try "ls -l" to check if any special permission bits are set and the owner and group. You can try "ls -Z" if SELinux is running .
Check for any ACLs: # Edit: Forgot something
Check the attributes of the file