Question

I can’t understand why I have to use chmod to get the correct permissions..
The file is created succesfully but with 0755 and not 0775 that I specify in mkdir .

( http://php.net/manual/en/function.mkdir.php )

I have to do chmod after mkdir to set the correct permissions.

Safe mode is off in php.ini and the folder belongs to php’s group and owner (www-data)

This doesn’t work:

  if(!is_dir("/var/www/customers/$username/$project_name")) 
  {
    mkdir("/var/www/customers/$username/$project_name",0775);

  }

But this does:

  if(!is_dir("/var/www/customers/$username/$project_name")) 
  {
    mkdir("/var/www/customers/$username/$project_name");
    chmod("/var/www/customers/$username/$project_name",0775);

  }

Answer 1

Yes, it’s because of umask…

from comments of docs: http://php.net/manual/en/function.mkdir.php

You might notice that when you create
a new directory using this code:

mkdir($dir, 0777);

The created folder actually has
permissions of 0755, instead of the
specified
0777. Why is this you ask? Because of umask(): http://php.net/manual/en/function.umask.php

The default value of umask, at least
on my setup, is 18. Which is 22 octal,
or
0022. This means that when you use mkdir() to CHMOD the created folder to
0777, PHP takes 0777 and substracts
the current value of umask, in our
case 0022, so the result is 0755 –
which is not what you wanted,
probably.

The “fix” for this is simple, include
this line:

$old_umask = umask(0);

Right before creating a folder with
mkdir() to have the actual value you
put be used as the CHMOD. If you would
like to return umask to its original
value when you’re done, use this:

umask($old_umask);