Is it possible to test effective permissions of a file for a specific user?
I normally do this by su user and then accessing the file, but I now want to test this on an user with no shell (i.e. a System user)
The sudo command can run anything as a particular user with the -u option. Instead of worrying about shells, just try to cat (or execute, whatever) your file as your target user:
$ sudo -u apache cat .ssh/authorized_keys
cat: .ssh/authorized_keys: Permission denied
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catis probably not the best choice though... it you are testing a large file or a binary file... – Alexis Wilke Nov 14 '15 at 6:29
I found convenient to use in scripts something like
sudo -u <user> test -r <file-to-test> && ...-
1best answer, as you can test for readable (-r), writable (-w) and executable (-x) without actually modifying/creating the file.
man testfor more details – Thomas Jul 1 '14 at 18:18
sudo -u <user> test -r <file-to-test>; echo $?
The echo $? part will output the exit status from the test.
Just remember here that the output will be 0 if the operation was successful! Or non-zero, e.g. 1, if not.
Like @Thomas's comment on @user72025's answer, use man test to get more operation tests, like test -x to test executability, test -w for writability, etc.
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1For me, this is the most helpful answer. The one by user72025 was close, but I had no idea what the result was. You've made that clear. Thanks. Voting up. – inspirednz Feb 15 '18 at 2:41
I've found you can use su -s <shellname> <username> to enter a specific shell as a specific user. You can then test file permissions as usual.
E.g.:
su -s /bin/bash Debian-exim
touch /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template
