Permissions with mkdir won't work

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);