messed var directory

[Derek Broughton]

Scott Lockwood wrote:

> On Thu, 2007-06-14 at 17:01 -0400, Brian McKee wrote:
>> On 14/06/07, Sven Richter  wrote:
>> > Hi Folks,
>> >
>> > recently i did something very stupid,
>> > instad of chmodding /var/www/*
>> > i chmodded /var/* with 0700 recurseviley.
>> > No i got several problems, i cant search apt database
>> > as user and so on.
>> >
>> > Is there any way i could recover the old permissions?
>> > Something like an overview about the standard setup?
>> >
>> 
>> Good one :-)
>> 
>> FWIW chmod 755 everything would be closer than 0700
>> then /var/lock tmp and crash are 1777 /var/local and mail are 2775
>> 
>> but that's just a dirty surface fix.   Maybe there's some way to coax
>> the default permissions info out of dpkg?      I'd love to hear
>> suggestions on this one - I can see me doing it :-)
> 
> Ugh. Be there, done that - did a full reinstall. Can't trust anything
> else...
> 
In var??  What's in var? Mail & news spool - probably only need to be
accessed by their owner.  cache - ditto: what can possibly access "cache"
other than the daemon that stored files there in the first
place.  /var/lock, /var/run, iirc, have their permissions set at every
boot.  www - I guess he really wanted 0700, so not a problem. backup - ?  I
don't even know what uses it.  

afaict, the biggest problem is /var/lib.  That's a hodgepodge of different
permissions.  
-- 
derek