Help on setting permissions for Apache built from source
 

Hi Friends,

My OS is Debian Squeeze. I had built Apache from source. After I had done the "configure,make,make install" process, I could see that the group permissions of installation directory of Apache( /usr/local/apache2 being my installation directory of Apache) being set to the existing system group named "staff".

I wish to know what purpose this is set to the group staff and what does this staff group do. From the following link, I see that I can change the group permissions to root.
If I follow as per what the following link says ( changing group ownerships to root user ), would this affect the Apache functionality?

http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Apache/Se...ons-in-Apache/

Thanks
Saagar

It will not affect the functionality I think. I guess it is set to "staff" so that any member of staff can change the apache settings. If you don't need a group to have that ability then changing it to "root" may make sense as it is more restrictive and secure. In both cases the http visitor is much more restricted as he is neither member of staff nor root...