posted 16 years ago
Unix - including Linux and Solaris - is a fairly secure OS. In the stock Linux distros, Apache runs as a special user - usually it's something like "apache".
So if you do an 'ls -l /var/www/index.html', you'll see who owns it and what rights are available.
For maximum security, it's best to either do editing either under the account of the apache user or as a member of the apache group (assuming that the pages are group-writable). If you open it up to everyone (chmod 777), then there's a chance that someday someone may come in and do Bad Things.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.