IOError - cannot create file (linux daemon-invoked script)

[Steve Holden]

cassiope wrote:
> I have a daemon on a Linux system that supports a number of Windows
> clients.  Among the functions is to send e-mails, which is
> sufficiently complicated that I fork() a separate process which gets
> setuid to a lesser user, and calls a python script which does the
> actual formatting and emailing (the daemon is written in C).  I want
> to save a copy of the email in a particular directory which is
> accessible to the Windows clients via samba.
> 
> The strange thing is that even with the right user-id, I cannot seem
> to write to the directory, getting an IOError exception.  Changing the
> directory to world-writable fixes this.  I can confirm the uid and gid
> for the script by having the script print these values just before
> trying to create/write the file.  Becoming the same lesser user, I
> have no problem writing a file to the same directory.
> 
Have you looked at the IOError's errno attribute to find out exactly why
the Python subprocess is unable to write to the directory?

> Is there anything that I can do to diagnose why this script is
> failing?  For various reasons I don't want to make the directory world-
> writable.
> 
I'd concur on that decision.

> This is on a Debian "squeeze" system, with python 2.5.
> 
> Thanks for any insights!

Take a closer look at the exception, that might stimulate a thought or two.

regards
 Steve
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