Unix: Nobody - Root

[fab]

What is the difference between file and group owners being nobody or root, apparently neither have other user accesses?

 

[mvl]

Root is the superuser account. Root has all privileges. Services like apache should not run as user root, that would be a security issue.
Nobody is a special user that can be used to run services. It is very common to run your apache webserver as user nobody (at least the child processes serving webpages). If the nobody account gets exposed, the security issues are less bad, because nobody has only limited privileges, at least that is how it should be.

 

[VirtualT]

Tis possible that files belonging to nobody may be set to not be readable by root, or folders that cannot be entered by root, but root would be able to change those permissions anyway.

 

[fab]

Ok, thanks guys. I just don't know why my server automatically asigns some of my users (domain) files and folders to "nobody" making them impossible to change or edit through the regular user since they don't have permissions, except through loging in as root. I would assume it depends how and where they were added from, i.e., how I logged in.

 

[Poohnix]

Ok, thanks guys. I just don't know why my server automatically asigns some of my users (domain) files and folders to "nobody" making them impossible to change or edit through the regular user since they don't have permissions, except through loging in as root. I would assume it depends how and where they were added from, i.e., how I logged in.

If you're adding them through some kind of web interface, that could happen. Then they get the permissions of the web server.