Permissions not permitted - Writing Files

[maymaymotron]

I cannot use chmod (operation not permitted) and permissions are set to not allow writing a file. I can gain access to the root/shell of the server but have no idea of what to change to make this work - is it a php.ini setting or something else? Keep in mind I'm pretty much completely ignorant when it comes to a server. With the code below I get the errors following the code:

chmod("test.txt", 777);
$outu = fopen("test.txt", "w");
fwrite($outu, "test");
fclose($outu);

Warning: chmod(): Operation not permitted in /home/bacc/www/budachamber.com/write.php on line 4

Warning: fopen(test.txt): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/bacc/www/budachamber.com/write.php on line 5

Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/bacc/www/budachamber.com/write.php on line 6

Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/bacc/www/budachamber.com/write.php on line 7

[drew010]

most likely php is running as a different username than that of the files you are trying to change. that will result in permission problems since the os will block out permission to users that dont own the file.

[dalecosp]

Hmm, there is no really good solution.

You can:

1. Change the owner of the web directory (and possibly its parent dir, too) to the user that Apache runs as (www, nobody, daemon, whatever).

2. chmod (using the shell) the webdir to 777.

3. Pick a directory outside the web dir, chmod or chown it, and be happy.

I'd recommend option 3 ... it's not a good idea to have a world writable (or webserver writable) document root....

On the server, it's pretty much the same all 'round:

$chmod 744 somedir

... and so on....