I want to secure a file upload directory on my server as described here but i have one problem before i can follow these instructions I don't know who the user is running apache

I've found a suggestion that you can look in httpd.conf and there will be a "User" line, but there is no such line in my httpd.conf file, so I guess Apache is running as the default user. I don't know what that is

So my question is are they?

how do I find out what the default user is
do I need to change the default user
if the answer is yes and I change the default user by editing httpd.conf, is it likely to screw anything up?

Thanks for sharing

Best Answer

ps aux | egrep '(apache|httpd)' typically will show what apache is running as.

Usually you do not need to change the default user, "nobody" or "apache" are typically fine users. As long as its not "root" ;)

edit: more accurate command for catching apache binaries too