Permission Denied error with Django while uploading a file

Question

I currently have a simple model defined, with a photoupload feature using django thumbnails plugin.

but when i try to upload it gives me the following error:

OSError at /admin/products/photo/add/  (13, 'Permission denied') 

Now, i know this is seems to be a permission issue, so the first thing i checked were permissions on the directory and changed these to 777 (Just to Test), restarted the server and fcgi and it still gives the error.

Traceback

Traceback: File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/handlers/base.py" in get_response   92.                 response = callback(request, *callback_args, **callback_kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/contrib/admin/options.py" in wrapper   226.                 return self.admin_site.admin_view(view)(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/views/decorators/cache.py" in _wrapped_view_func   44.         response = view_func(request, *args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/contrib/admin/sites.py" in inner   186.             return view(request, *args, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/transaction.py" in _commit_on_success   240.                 res = func(*args, **kw) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/contrib/admin/options.py" in add_view   734.                 self.save_model(request, new_object, form, change=False) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/contrib/admin/options.py" in save_model   557.         obj.save() File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/base.py" in save   410.         self.save_base(force_insert=force_insert, force_update=force_update) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/base.py" in save_base   483.                     values = [(f, f.get_db_prep_save(raw and getattr(self, f.attname) or f.pre_save(self, True))) for f in meta.local_fields if not isinstance(f, AutoField)] File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/fields/files.py" in pre_save   252.             file.save(file.name, file, save=False) File "/var/www/django_projects/gang/../gang/products/thumbs.py" in save   84.         super(ImageWithThumbsFieldFile, self).save(name, content, save) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/fields/files.py" in save   91.         self.name = self.storage.save(name, content) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/files/storage.py" in save   47.         name = self._save(name, content) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/files/storage.py" in _save   146.             os.makedirs(directory) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/os.py" in makedirs   150.             makedirs(head, mode) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/os.py" in makedirs   150.             makedirs(head, mode) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/os.py" in makedirs   150.             makedirs(head, mode) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/os.py" in makedirs   157.     mkdir(name, mode)  Exception Type: OSError at /admin/products/photo/add/ Exception Value: (13, 'Permission denied') 

The user that the FCGI daemon is being run on definitely has access to read and write to that directory.

From settings.py

MEDIA_ROOT = '/var/www/sites/gang/http/media/' MEDIA_ROOT_URL = '/media/' 

Answer 1

I just ran into this same problem. And found the solution if you are hosting with Apache as your server. For instance if my settings were:

MEDIA_ROOT = '/var/www/media/geekingreen'

then I would simply need to give that folder the correct permissions recursively to make sure that any sub-folders also have the same permission. The default group for apache is www-data so to give permission to my django app I would run these commands.

cd /var/www/media chgrp -R www-data geekingreen/ chmod -R g+w geekingreen/ 

The chgrp -R www-data geekingreen/ command changes the directory geekingreen and any subdirectories to have the group www-data.
The chmod -R g+w geekingreen/ command changes what permissions the group has on all of these folders that now belong to www-data, to now have the write permission. Obviously required for uploads.

Hope this can help anyone that may have had a similar problem.