move_uploaded_file gives "failed to open stream: Permission denied" error

Question

This is because images and tmp_file_upload are only writable by root user. For upload to work we need to make the owner of those folders same as httpd process owner OR make them globally writable (bad practice).

1. Check apache process owner: $ps aux | grep httpd. The first column will be the owner typically it will be nobody

2. Change the owner of images and tmp_file_upload to be become nobody or whatever the owner you found in step 1.

   $sudo chown nobody /var/www/html/mysite/images/
   
   $sudo chown nobody /var/www/html/mysite/tmp_file_upload/
   

3. Chmod images and tmp_file_upload now to be writable by the owner, if needed [Seems you already have this in place]. Mentioned in @Dmitry Teplyakov answer.

   $ sudo chmod -R 0755 /var/www/html/mysite/images/
   
   $ sudo chmod -R 0755 /var/www/html/mysite/tmp_file_upload/
   

4. For more details why this behavior happend, check the manual http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.upload-tmp-dir , note that it also talking about open_basedir directive.

You can also run this script to find out the Apache process owner:

<?php echo exec('whoami'); ?>

And then change the owner of the destination directory to what you've got. Use the command:

chown user destination_dir

And then use the command

chmod 755 destination_dir

to change the destination directory permission.

This worked for me.

sudo adduser <username> www-data
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
sudo chmod -R g+rwX /var/www

Then logout or reboot.

If SELinux complains, try the following

sudo semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www(/.*)?'
sudo restorecon -Rv '/var/www(/.*)?'

If you have Mac OS X, go to the file root or the folder of your website.

Then right-hand click on it, go to get information, go to the very bottom (Sharing & Permissions), open that, change all read-only to read and write. Make sure to open padlock, go to setting icon, and choose Apply to the enclosed items...

I wanted to add this to the previous suggestions. If you are using a version of Linux that has SELinux enabled then you should also execute this in a shell:

chcon -R --type httpd_sys_rw_content_t /path/to/your/directory

Along with giving your web server user permissions either through group or changing of the owner of the directory.

Change permissions for this folder

# chmod -R 0755 /var/www/html/mysite/images/