I have a web server where I want multiple users to be able to maintain, modify, and create files in the /home/httpd/html dir.

I have made the users members of a new group (web).
I have chgrp -R the dir so that all current files and sub dirs are owned by the web group.

I want the users to show up as the owner (for tracking purposes) and the group to be web on all NEW files and dirs.

Currently they show up as the user for owner, but USER for the group.

I set the GID bit with chmod and now new files do show up as web for the group. Is that the correct way?

2nd question:
Is there any way to set a default umask for a part of the dir structure? Currently the umask is 077 and that means that I have to go in and chmod all the web files so they work on the site. I DO NOT want these users to have to do that.

I could set the default umask to 775, but then ALL files will be created that way.... not good.

Surely there is a way to accomplish this.

Martini

1) Yes, that is the right way.

2) I believe most admins use a script that runs from CRON on a nightly or hourly basis.

++ script ++
chgrp -R web /home/httpd/html
chmod -R a+r,ug+w,o-w /home/httpd/html
++ end ++

Regarding point 2: don't try it on old systems (potentially with old fileutils) if a malicious user in the web group creates a symlink to a file, for instance /etc/passwd when this scriipt is running out of cron /etc/passwd file ends up to be in the hands of this user.