Permission Denied?

[Anon]

I am beginning out with PHP, and I am "opening a file". What does it mean when i get this error message?: What can i do to make it work? What it is i am trying to do, is when somebody orders something, it writes/copies their order to a file, so I can read it. Could you please help me. Here's exactly what the error message is:

Warning: fopen("orders.txt", "a") - Permission denied in /home/virtual/site5/fst/home/mak1125/public_html/processorder.php on line 45

[Anon]

"Permission denied" means exactly what it says. The Web server does not have permission to open that file. Who owns that file? What are the permission settings on that file?

Conventionally, on a Unix system, a Web server will run under a special identity with limited authority to alter files. If you want to allow the Web server to open a file for append or write, you must explicitly grant permission at the filesystem level. It's not a PHP issue.

[Anon]

SO where can I go or what exactly can I do to change the persmission, and allow the webserver to open it.

[Anon]

telnet into your server and change to the directory that contains orders.txt
To give the file full permissions to everybody type:
chmod 777 orders.txt

A couple things to take note of:
-You have to own the file in order to change the permissions (or be root)
- Once the file has 777 permission, anyone on the server can read, write and execute that file.