SELECT INTO OUTFILE permission denied but the user can write to the directory

Question

I have an issue trying to use SELECT INTO OUTFILE and using a directory other than /tmp.

My Linux user is named datam, my MySQL user is lea, and MySQL runs as mysql.

When datam runs mysql -u lea database and tries to do a SELECT INTO OUTFILE with a path of /home/datam/xfers/online/file.csv, I get an error code 13, permission denied. Using /tmp/file.csv works, so I'm fairly confident it is not an issue with permissions within MySQL.

I've added mysql to the datam group and have verified this with:

~$ sudo id mysql
uid=106(mysql) gid=114(mysql) groups=114(mysql),1001(datam)

I have /home/datam/ set as 775 recursively.

If I do sudo -u mysql /bin/bash and go to /home/datam/xfers/online/ and do touch file it writes a file.

What do I need to do to allow mysql to write a file from SELECT INTO OUTFILE?

I believe this is not a duplicate of other questions surrounding this subject, because I've looked at them and followed all of their instructions (setting execute on all directories leading up to the one I want, setting GRANT FILE ON, etc).

MySQL user lea grants:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Grants for lea@localhost                                                                                  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| GRANT FILE ON *.* TO 'lea'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '*9BB439A3A652A9DAD3718215F77A7AA06108A267' |
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `database`.* TO 'lea'@'localhost'                                    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Answer 1

This may be caused by mysql user permissions.

As stated here https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/17029/cannot-output-mysql-data-to-file

To give yourself FILE privilege, do the following:

1. service mysql restart --skip-networking --skip-grant-tables
2. mysql <hit enter>
3. UPDATE mysql.user SET File_priv = 'Y' WHERE user='lea' AND host='localhost';
4. exit
5. service mysql restart

The linux user can write a file. But the mysql service may be blocked by apparmor.

Check this file: /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.mysqld.

Add your project folder there:

/usr/sbin/mysqld {
    [...]
    /home/datam/xfers/online/ r,
    /home/datam/xfers/online/* rw
    [...]
}

Finally, do a

sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor reload