[Resolved] Permissions Trouble

[MikeSnead]

I'm working on a log control class for a project of mine and I'm having some fun permissions issues. I am a *nix newb, but searches have thus far only yielded solutions that didn't work for me. Anywho, on to the actual problem.

I have a method within the log_control class that calls fopen() that has thus far been unable to open/create the file. The error reported by PHP is that permission is denied, but I have chmod-ed the entire working directory up to 0777 (via chmod -R 0777 dirname) which generally fixed the problem (granted with risks) for most older posts I found in search. However, I still get that permission is denied. This is strange, no? JoeBlow in an Igloo near the north pole should be able to write a file to that directory now, right?

The server is running Fedora Core 3 w/ Apache 2.0.52 and PHP 4.3.9.

code for the class below: (error on method "open_log").

<?php

/**
 * CLASS - "log_control"
 *
 * Generic file log abstraction class for ShootNaked CMS
 * useful for error logging and anything else where storing
 * data into a text file is required.
 *
 */

class log_control
{
        var $log_filename;
        var $log_stream;
        var $newline;

    function log_control( $filename )
    {
            // Set filename class property

            $this->log_filename = $filename;

            // Set newline type for file writing

            $this->newline = "\n";

            // Open log file

            $this->open_log();
    }

    function open_log()
    {
            // Open log file for appending

            $this->log_stream = fopen($this->log_filename, 'a');
    }

    function close_log()
    {
            // Close log stream and unset handle

            fclose($this->log_stream);
            unset($this->log_stream);
    }

    function delete_log()
    {
            // Close log stream if open

            if ( isset($this->log_stream) )
            {
                    $this->close_log();
            }

            // Delete the log file

            unlink($this->log_filename);
    }

    function log_to_file( $string )
    {
            // Send given string to log file

            fputs($this->log_stream,'[ '.date('m - d - Y | h:i:s A').' ]'.$string.$this->newline);
    }
}

?>

[georgeb]

Make sure you're using the full filesystem path in fopen (if a local call, which I assume it is)

For example, if you have Plesk control panel, your full fs path might be
/home/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/the_rest_of_the_path_to_the_file.txt

Hope that helps!

[MikeSnead]

Originally posted by georgeb
Make sure you're using the full filesystem path in fopen (if a local call, which I assume it is)

For example, if you have Plesk control panel, your full fs path might be
/home/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/the_rest_of_the_path_to_the_file.txt

Hope that helps!

The full system path still gets the permission error. Weird stuff.

[MikeSnead]

Argh... this is making my brain go nuts... what can cause something with 777 permissions to be unwritable?

[georgeb]

stupid question - but lets rule out the obvious - are you sure your directory is writable? and that the user that apache (and therefore php) run as have permission to write to that directory?? what user/group is reported as owning the directory? is your directory under the docroot or outside the docroot? any other info you can give?

point me to a url or control panel and I'll try to help

but first do this - navigate to the directory containing the directory in question, type "ls -la" (without quotes) at your shell prompt, and you should see
"drwxrwxrwx" (if truly writable) followed by user and group who own the directory

tell me what this reports and we'll go from there...

[MikeSnead]

Well... there's not really a stupid question with me. I'm lucky to have gotten the box this far with as little knowledge as I have.

Here's what I get when I "ls -la" in the directory which contains the directory I want to write to:

[mike@shootnaked shootnaked_v2]$ ls -la
total 48
drwxrwxrwx  4 mike mike 4096 May 18 20:14 .
drwxrwxrwx  3 root root 4096 May 18 20:09 ..
drwxrwxrwx  4 mike mike 4096 May 17 18:19 include
-rwxrwxrwx  1 mike mike  489 May 18 20:09 index.php
drwxrwxrwx  2 mike mike 4096 May 18 20:14 logs
-rwxrwxrwx  1 mike mike   19 May 17 23:39 phpinfo.php
[mike@shootnaked shootnaked_v2]$

I'm gonna guess it's the user/group that's causing my problem. How do I find out the what user/group Apache is using?

[georgeb]

yep, it seems so

at your shell prompt, type "ps aux | grep apache | more"

the user will be the first item in each line

so, lets assume for a minute that the user reported is apache, then you'll want to change the ownership of the logs directory. there is a security implication lurking here, but skip that for now...

in the same directory as before, type
[mike@shootnaked shootnaked_v2] "chown apache:apache" (without quotes, but you knew that)

but thats assuming the user is apache, change as appropriate, and report the results...

[MikeSnead]

Thanks for all the help thus far... greatly appreciated. Upon running the "ps aux | grep apache | more" command I got the following:

[mike@shootnaked shootnaked_v2]$ ps aux | grep apache | more
apache    1993  0.0  5.1 26872 13180 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache    1994  0.0  4.9 26848 12712 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache    1995  0.0  5.1 26872 13180 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache    1996  0.0  4.9 26848 12712 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache    1997  0.0  5.1 26872 13172 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache    1998  0.0  4.9 26848 12712 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache    1999  0.0  4.9 26848 12712 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache    2000  0.0  5.1 26872 13172 ?       S    May18   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
mike      4367  0.0  0.2  4916  676 pts/3    S+   10:51   0:00 grep apache
[mike@shootnaked shootnaked_v2]$

So I performed the chown command (as root because it wouldn't let me as 'mike') on the logs directory, but still the PHP scripted errored with permissions. So I tried chown-ing the entire directory (using chown -R apache:apache)... still the errors persist. Here's an "ls -la" on the directory as of now:

[mike@shootnaked shootnaked_v2]$ ls -la
total 48
drwxrwxrwx  4 apache apache 4096 May 18 23:59 .
drwxrwxrwx  3 root   root   4096 May 18 20:09 ..
drwxrwxrwx  4 apache apache 4096 May 17 18:19 include
-rwxrwxrwx  1 apache apache  484 May 18 23:58 index.php
drwxrwxrwx  2 apache apache 4096 May 18 20:14 logs
-rwxrwxrwx  1 apache apache   19 May 17 23:39 phpinfo.php
[mike@shootnaked shootnaked_v2]$

Tis strange... I can get this to work fine on my remote hosting... but my own server just laughs at me 🙁

[georgeb]

that is very strange. all should be working now. especially since it's working on your remote machine.

so let;s go through what we know we know:

1- apache owns the log directory, and is the user that php runs as
2- the logs directory is world-writable (777)
3- it works on your remote host

so, we're sure it's a problem with your local machine, and it seems to me that it's most-likely still a user/group problem.

its up to you of course, but if you want to give me ssh access to your local machine, I'll see if I can find anything. This is really odd though, I'm out of simple ideas...

give me an email address and I'll write off the board - if you want to give me ssh access that is, I would understand if you don't, but I don't have any other suggestions otherwise.

I figured that changing the ownership would do the trick for sure...

[edit]
actually, let's rule out one more thing, run an "ls -la" within your logs directory and post the results. then we'll go from there...
[end edit]

[MikeSnead]

Here's the result of the "ls -la" within logs.

[mike@shootnaked ~]$ cd /var/www/html/shootnaked_v2/logs
[mike@shootnaked logs]$ ls
[mike@shootnaked logs]$ ls -la
total 16
drwxrwxrwx  2 apache apache 4096 May 18 20:14 .
drwxrwxrwx  4 apache apache 4096 May 18 23:59 ..
[mike@shootnaked logs]$

[georgeb]

alright, had you do that to rule out the possiblity that your log file already exists and is possibly owned by another user (even though your -R flag on your chown statement would've recursively changed the ownership)

how about this - show me your call to the constructor and let's make sure it is written correctly. as you probably know, the call I am referring to will look something like this:

$log_controller =& new log_control('/var/www/html/shootnaked_v2/logs/my_log_name.txt');

now i'm determined to figure this out...it's bugging me :-)

[MikeSnead]

lol... glad to hear this problem isn't just messing with my head 🙂

Here are the variations on the constructor call I've used.

$log = new log_control('logs/log_test.txt');

and ...

$log = new log_control('./logs/log_test.txt');

and the full path ...

$log = new log_control('/var/www/html/shootnaked_v2/logs/log_test.txt');

All give the same fopen 'warning' about permission denied. Do I need to configure something for the apache user aside from the chmod/chown of the files/directories? I'm thinking of also just trying to assign apache to a totally new user...

I'll get you the SSH info tomorrow if my toying tonight fails :p

[MikeSnead]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!

SELinux was the problem... not allowing anything to write from Apache. Disabling protection for httpd in the SELinux config fixed everything.

Hope this thread can help someone else in the future... 🙂