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Bash file erroring out on Ubuntu 20.04

I am having a problem successfully executing a bash file in Ubuntu.

The coding appears to be fine. The file basically check to see if a directory exists - if not it creates it and then assigns permission to it. It is for a symfony project.

It is to be executed with the web-site of the project i.e. /var/www/myproject

Here's a sample of the coding - very simple:

# Make the web/log dir if not exists
if [ ! -d web/log ]
then
    mkdir -p web/log/error
    mkdir -p web/log/failure
     mkdir -p web/log/test
fi
chmod a+w web/log -R

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and more sample:

echo Copying -dist files
cp -b -v apps/admin/config/app.yml-dist apps/admin/config/app.yml

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Here is what I receive:

chmod: changing permissions of 'web/log/test': Operation not permitted
chmod: changing permissions of 'web/log/error': Operation not permitted
chmod: changing permissions of 'web/log/failure': Operation not permitted

PHP Warning:  chmod(): Operation not permitted in /var/www/myproject.com/lib/vendor/symfony/lib/task/sfFilesystem.class.php on line 168

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I have never added myself or any user or group to the www-data. No sure what it should be as to what to add. So I usually use sudo.

What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it ?

Seth Simmons

Here's a sample of the coding - very simple:

you can reduce those 8 lines to 6

# Make the web/log dir if not exists
if [ ! -d web/log ]
then
mkdir -p web/log/{error,failure,test}
fi
chmod a+w web/log -R

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PHP Warning: chmod(): Operation not permitted in /var/www/myproject.com/lib/vendor/symfony/lib/task/sfFilesystem.class.php on line 168

the account the web server is running as doesn't have permission to do that

you would need to make the account that the web server runs as either user or group owner

something like...

# Make the web/log dir if not exists
if [ ! -d web/log ]
then
   mkdir -p web/log/{error,failure,test}
fi
chmod a+w web/log -R
chown user.www-data /web/log -R

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Marthaj

ASKER

Thank you for responding.
I am logged in to my server as marthaj - (administrator). I added myself to the www-data.
I also executed this to give execute permission to the install.sh file. this is what I executed:

chmod +x /var/www/myproject.com/install.sh

That being so, shouldn't I be able to execute the install.sh and not receive those errors ?
I executed this: apachectl -S which tells me that the user/group is www-data. So doesn't it have control over my /var/www/myproject.com site then?

User: name="www-data" id=33 not_used
Group: name="www-data" id=33 not_used

So if I am a part of the www-data now, why do I still receive the errors? Relaod Apache by systemctl reload apache2 ?
I am a bit confused here...as you can read..

dfke

Hi,

A dirty way to try and prove that the issue is permission related is to change the ownership of the web/log folder to www-data, so it can have the permissions to modify the folder. This does have security implications but you can always tighten permissions afterwards.

Cheers

Marthaj

ASKER

Thank you for responding.
dfke - So do this:

sudo chown -R www-data /var/www/myproject.com

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And see what happens...

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Seth Simmons

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Marthaj

ASKER

Thank you for responding. It seems strange to me that I would still need to use sudo if I owned the folder. And yet, I can understand why the need.
To correct the problem, I need to alter the coding to include sudo preceding mkdir etc or execute the commands directly via terminal.
I will see what happens.