Chown command giving invalid user

ServerStorm · 01-05-2005, 08:25 PM

Hi I am attempting to configure squirrelmail. I have followed these steps:

1) downloaded tar
2) extracted tar; cd to extracted tar's director; made attachments dir; and attempt to reassign ownership using chown.

Code:

tar xzvf squirrelmail-1.4.3.a.tar.gz
cd squirrelmail-14.3a
mkdir attachments
chown -R www-data data attachments

[I] Error is thrown: 

chown: 'www-data'  : invalid user

When I looked in chown --help this appears to be formated ok. One thing that I am not sure of is wether or not www-data has to be an existing linux user. If so I am not sure how to determine whether it is or is not?

I have performed many chown commands in the last day or so and all with success so I can't understand why this is failing?

Your help in determining why this might be failing is greatly appreciated.

Psyddicus · 01-05-2005, 08:33 PM

I believe that your user 'www-data' doesn't yet exist if you're getting that error (a user has to exist to own something). I'm not familiar with the app you're setting up, but I suppose you could just create the user www-data on your own and then give him the folders in question.

ServerStorm · 01-05-2005, 08:54 PM

Thanks Psyddicus

This makes sense. In all other cases where I used Chown I needed to create the user first. In this instance I was copying code directly as a step by step and so I assumed that an earlier script in this step by step created the required users. Thinking about it I should have been able to come to this on my own, so thanks for asking a somewhat silly question!

Truly,
ServerStorm

Psyddicus · 01-05-2005, 08:59 PM

More than glad to help, I've done similar stuff myself quite a few times in the past. Sometimes you get so caught up in what you're doing that you forget about the easier stuff.

zeuss86 · 03-23-2010, 02:33 AM

here is the thing:
in my /etc/passwd file, I can see my user:

Code:

[root@hamed]# cat /etc/passwd
eyvazian:x:1011:1011:System User for eyvazian:/home/eyvazian/:/sbin/nologin

but when I run chown I get the following error:

Code:

[root@hamed]# chown /home/eyvazian/ eyvazian
chown: `./-24.php': invalid user

any suggestions ?

Sayan Acharjee · 03-23-2010, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeuss86

here is the thing:
in my /etc/passwd file, I can see my user:

Code:

[root@hamed]# cat /etc/passwd
eyvazian:x:1011:1011:System User for eyvazian:/home/eyvazian/:/sbin/nologin

but when I run chown I get the following error:

Code:

[root@hamed]# chown /home/eyvazian/ eyvazian
chown: `./-24.php': invalid user

any suggestions ?

The command you are executing is wrong, try this:

Quote:

#chown eyvazian /home/eyvazian/

catkin · 03-23-2010, 02:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeuss86

any suggestions ?

Better you give chown the user before the file.

Code:

c@CW8:~$ chown --help
Usage: chown [OPTION]... [OWNER][:[GROUP]] FILE...
  or:  chown [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...

EDIT: sayan_acharjee got there first