Apache directory permissions problem

Question

I have a problem with a web application and its cache directory (I'm using symfony)

This cache directory is populated by the www-data user when visiting the application pages. The cache can also be populated or deleted executing some commands from console.

The problem is I use this machine for development and I need to access via web, and flush caches, create new models, etc via console.

Currently I have 777 permissions to make it writable by anyone. If I browse a page (and the cache is generated) I can't, for example, create a new model because I don't have permissions to alter the files generated by www-data. I must use sudo. But then, the files have root permissions and can't be written by apache, and the page crashes...

How can I make this directory (and its dinamically-generated contents) writable by both users?

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

"The problem is I use this machine for development" -- yeah, that is a problem. Stop doing that, or at least use a separate app instance (developmestuction is no fun).

To make a directory writable by both you and the webserver, you can either use extended ACLs to grant the webserver write access:

setfacl -m u:www-data:rwX /whatever/you/like

Or grant the webserver group (probably www-data write access to the directory:

chgrp www-data /whatever/you/like; chmod g+w /whatever/you/like

The latter choice may require root privs (if you're not a member of the www-data group), and the former may not work if extended ACLs aren't enabled on your server.