Granting write permission of files and directories to a non-root user for profile creation

Granting write permission of files and directories to a non-root user for profile creation

The root user can grant write permission of the appropriate files and directories to a non-root user. The non-root user can then create the profile. The root user can create a group for users who are authorized to create profiles, or the root user can give individual users the ability to create profiles. The following example task shows how to create a group that is authorized to create profiles.

Before you begin
This task assumes a basic familiarity with system commands.
This task uses the following terms:

Root users refers to:

Root users
Administrators

Non-root users refers to

Non-root users
Non-administrators

You must have root authority to accomplish the following tasks.

About this task

The steps that you follow to grant write permission of files and directories to a non-root user for profile creation depends on whether a profile was previously created. If at least one profile was created prior to implementing the following steps, certain directories and files were created. Because these directories and files were created, skip the steps that create these directories and files. If no profile was previously created, implement the steps to create the required directories and files. In most cases, a profile has been created previously.
Have the root user perform the following steps to create the profilers group and give the group proper permissions to create a profile.

Procedure
Log on as the root user to the system that has WAS installed.
Create the profilers group that use to create profiles.
Create a user named user1 to create profiles.
Add the root user and user1 to the profilers group.
Log off and back on as the root user to pick up the new group.
Create the following directories as the root user, if no profile was previously created:
Create the app_server_root/logs/wasprofile directory
mkdir app_server_root/logs/wasprofile
Create the app_server_root\logs\wasprofile directory by following instructions in the Windows documentation. For this example procedure the directory is
app_server_root\logs\wasprofile
Create the app_server_root/properties/fsdb directory
mkdir app_server_root/properties/fsdb
Create the app_server_root\properties\fsdb directory by following instructions in the Windows documentation. For this example procedure the directory is
app_server_root\properties\fsdb
As the root user, create the profileRegistry.xml file and add the proper information, if no profile was previously created:
Follow directions for your operating system to create the profileRegistry.xml file. For this example, the file paths are:
app_server_root/properties/profileRegistry.xml
app_server_root\properties\profileRegistry.xml
Follow instructions for your operating system to add the following information to the profileRegistry.xml file. The file must be encoded as UTF-8
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<profiles/>
As the root user, use operating system tools to change directory and file permissions.
The following example assumes that the installation root directory is /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer
chgrp  profilers /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/logs/wasprofile
chmod  g+wr  /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/logs/wasprofile
chgrp  profilers /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/properties
chmod  g+wr  /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/properties
chgrp  profilers /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/properties/fsdb
chmod  g+wr  /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/properties/fsdb
chgrp  profilers /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/properties/profileRegistry.xml
chmod  g+wr  /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/properties/profileRegistry.xml
chgrp -R profilers /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profileTemplates
The following example assumes that the installation root directory is C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer . Follow instructions in the Windows documentation to give the profilers group read and write permission to the following directories and their files
C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\logs\wasprofile
C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\properties
C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\properties\fsdb
C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\properties\profileRegistry.xml
You might have to change the permissions on additional files if the non-root user encounters permission problems. For example, if you allow a non-root user to delete a profile, the user might have to delete the following file:
app_server_root/properties/profileRegistry.xml_LOCK
app_server_root\properties\profileRegistry.xml_LOCK

Give write access to the non-root user for the file to allow the user to delete the file. If the non-root user still cannot delete the profile, the root user can delete the profile.
Results
The root user created the profilers group and gave the group proper permissions to certain directories and files to create a profile. These directories and files are the only ones in the installation root of WAS to which a non-root user needs to write to create a profile. These directories and files are the only ones in the installation root of WAS to which a non-root user needs to write to create and augment a profile.

What to do next
Have the non-root user that belongs to the profilers group create a profile in a directory that the non-root user owns and to which the non-root user has write permission, but not in the installation root directory of the product.
Related reference
wasprofile command