Lighttpd start error. Cannot write to log

Question

I'm following a tutorial to help me install the lighttpd server software on my Mandriva box. http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/installing-and-configuring-lighttpd-webserver-howto.html

I think that I've done everything necessary but I keep getting this error whenever I want to start the server.

[root@localhost lighttpd]# /etc/init.d/lighttpd start
Starting lighttpd: 2009-07-28 13:00:15: (log.c.84) opening errorlog  '/var/log/lighttpd/error.log' failed: Permission denied
2009-07-28 13:00:15: (server.c.893) Opening errorlog failed. Going down.

I don't understand what's causing this problem. I'm running this server as root, there should be no permission problem.

Answer 1

Does litehttpd change its ID to another user when started like apache? If so you will need to make sure the log folder/file is writable by that user.

Answer 2

Can you post the output of

ls -l /var/log/lighttpd/error.log