Shell Programming and Scripting

Context: Apache 2.0, Redhat 8.0, Perl 5.80

I am using the follwing line to write a file

open UPLOADFILE, ">$writeto" or errorcantwrite();

which works just fine when the directory permissions are 700

However .... I dont want to have a directory that allows users to both upload and execute.

So I set the permissions to 600

But the code stops working. Why should this line need any execute permissions in the directory to write a file?

I don't think I completely understand what you mean. You mention a directory you're changing the permissions on. Is the script in the directory too? Or are you just trying to create UPLOADFILE in that directory?

Really the directory should have 700 permissions on it ... to do most anything with a directory it has to be executable. I suppose you could write something in your script so that when they upload files, the permissions on the file are changed to 600 so they can't execute the files. But the directory needs to be executable to move files in or out of it.