file_exists permission denied errors

[bcgeek]

Hi:
I'm trying to store images in a non-html folder so they cannot be easily stolen.

I've done this on another server without a problem but cannot get it to work on a new server. (Both Linux).

What I do is check for the existence of the image file then serve it using fopen in the image src tag if it exists.

Here's the snippet:

$picpath="/home/admin/thumbs/";
$picfile = $picpath . "picture.jpg";

clearstatcache();
if (file_exists($picfile)) {

//display the picture (I just call a function...)

Here's what I get:

Warning: stat failed for /home/admin/thumbs/picture.jpg (errno=13 - Permission denied)

I have tried everything I can think of to ensure I have permissions...

1. on this box, apache runs as "apache"

2. I tried several variations on the path

3. changed ownership of thumbs directory to "apache"

4. changed permissions to 777

   No matter what I do - file_exists fails...

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Brian

[hand]

Did you also set the permissions of the directory (thumbs) to 777 ?

[bcgeek]

Yes - still no luck....

[hand]

Try it with
$picpath="home/admin/thumbs/";
[small]but I don't think that ...[/small]