62
votes

I have had to use the

app/console cache:clear  command

to solve a problem when generating an entity.

I am now unable to load my homepage on :

  http://localhost/projet_etienne/web/app_dev.php

it says :

RuntimeException: Failed to write cache file "/var/www/projet_etienne/app/cache/dev/classes.php".

I don't understand much about this cache business!

In my app/cache folder, I got a dev, a dev_new, a dev_old folder. Is that normal?

the

app/console cache:clear

generates by the way a :

[ErrorException] Warning: rename(/var/www/projet_etienne/app/cache/dev,/var/www/projet_etien
ne/app/cache/dev_old): Directory not empty in /var/www/projet_etienne/vendo
r/symfony/symfony/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/Command/CacheClearComm
and.php line 77

please help!

10
Check cache folder persmisions. It must be writable. You can do: chmod 777 -R app/cache/smoreno
thanx so much ! that was simply this ...but it is not always easy to identify the source of the problem when not being extremely familiar with symfony nor linuxMatoeil
chmod 777 is a bad idea. So many people using linux just gran 777 permissions on something that a specific process needs to write rather than setting the needed permissions for that specific user. For this particular file, run ps aux | grep apache to see what user is running the apache process and then granting ownership via chown -R apache-user cache would suffice better than granting rwx for all users. Be sure to chmod u=rw cache afterward to prevent execution as the process does not require those permissions.user1119648

10 Answers

102
votes

For a GOOD and definite solution see the Setting up Permissions section in Installing and Configuring Symfony section :

Setting up Permissions

One common issue when installing Symfony is that the app/cache and app/logs directories must be writable both by the web server and the command line user. On a UNIX system, if your web server user is different from your command line user, you can try one of the following solutions.

  1. Use the same user for the CLI and the web server

In development environments, it is a common practice to use the same UNIX user for the CLI and the web server because it avoids any of these permissions issues when setting up new projects. This can be done by editing your web server configuration (e.g. commonly httpd.conf or apache2.conf for Apache) and setting its user to be the same as your CLI user (e.g. for Apache, update the User and Group values).

  1. Using ACL on a system that supports chmod +a

Many systems allow you to use the chmod +a command. Try this first, and if you get an error - try the next method. This uses a command to try to determine your web server user and set it as HTTPDUSER:

$ rm -rf app/cache/*
$ rm -rf app/logs/*

$ HTTPDUSER=`ps aux | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\  -f1`
$ sudo chmod +a "$HTTPDUSER allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs
$ sudo chmod +a "`whoami` allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs
  1. Using ACL on a system that does not support chmod +a

Some systems don't support chmod +a, but do support another utility called setfacl. You may need to enable ACL support on your partition and install setfacl before using it (as is the case with Ubuntu). This uses a command to try to determine your web server user and set it as HTTPDUSER:

$ HTTPDUSER=`ps aux | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\  -f1`
$ sudo setfacl -R -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX app/cache app/logs
$ sudo setfacl -dR -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX app/cache app/logs

For Symfony 3 it would be:

$ HTTPDUSER=`ps aux | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\  -f1`
$ sudo setfacl -R -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX var/cache var/logs
$ sudo setfacl -dR -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX var/cache var/logs

If this doesn't work, try adding -n option.

  1. Without using ACL

If none of the previous methods work for you, change the umask so that the cache and log directories will be group-writable or world-writable (depending if the web server user and the command line user are in the same group or not). To achieve this, put the following line at the beginning of the app/console, web/app.php and web/app_dev.php files:

umask(0002); // This will let the permissions be 0775

// or

umask(0000); // This will let the permissions be 0777

Note that using the ACL is recommended when you have access to them on your server because changing the umask is not thread-safe.

http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#checking-symfony-application-configuration-and-setup

source : Failed to write cache file "/var/www/myapp/app/cache/dev/classes.php" when clearing the cache

23
votes

Most likely it means that the directory and/or sub-directories are not writable. Many forget about sub-directories.

Symfony 2

chmod -R 777 app/cache app/logs

Symfony 3 directory structure

chmod -R 777 var/cache var/logs

Additional Resources

Permissions solution by Symfony (mentioned previously).

Permissions solution by KPN University - additionally includes an screen-cast on installation.

Note: If you're using Symfony 3 directory structure, substitute app/cache and app/logs with var/cache and var/logs.

17
votes

If the folder is already writable so thats not the problem.

You can also just navigate to /www/projet_etienne/app/cache/ and manualy remove the folders in there (dev, dev_new, dev_old).

Make sure to SAVE a copy of those folder somewhere to put back if this doesn't fix the problem

I know this is not the way it should be done but it worked for me a couple of times now.

13
votes

You probably aborted a clearcache halfway and now you already have an app/cache/dev_old.

Try this (in the root of your project, assuming you're on a Unixy environment like OS X or Linux):

rm -rf app/cache/dev*

8
votes

Maybe you forgot to change the permissions of app/cache app/log

I'm using Ubuntu so

sudo chmod -R 777 app/cache
sudo chmod -R 777 app/logs
sudo setfacl -dR -m u::rwX app/cache app/logs

Hope it helps..

2
votes

I move the whole directory from my Windows installation to a unix production server and I got the same error. To fix it, I just ran these two lines in unix and everything started to run fine

rm -rf app/cache/*
rm -rf app/logs/*
1
votes

i executed:

ps aux | grep apache

and got something like that:

root     28147  0.0  5.4 326336 27024 ?        Ss   20:06   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28150  0.0  1.3 326368  6852 ?        S    20:06   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28151  0.0  4.4 329016 22124 ?        S    20:06   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28152  0.1  6.0 331252 30092 ?        S    20:06   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28153  0.0  1.3 326368  6852 ?        S    20:06   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28154  0.0  1.3 326368  6852 ?        S    20:06   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28157  0.0  1.3 326368  6852 ?        S    20:06   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
user     28297  0.0  0.1  15736   924 pts/4    S+   20:12   0:00 grep --color=auto apache

so my user with no access turned out to be www-data thus i executed commands:

sudo chown -R www-data app/cache
sudo chown -R www-data app/logs

and it solved access errors.

Never-ever use unsecure 777 for solving specific access probles:

sudo chmod -R 777 app/cache
sudo chmod -R 777 app/logs
1
votes

if symfony version less than 2.8

sudo chmod -R 777 app/cache/*

if symfony version great than or equal 3.0

sudo chmod -R 777 var/cache/*
0
votes

Just use this acl cmd, next time the files inside var are created it will have the r/w/x permission for www-data user.

cd var 
rm -rf *
cd ..
setfacl -d -m u:www-data:rwx var

Cmd explanation:

setfacl -> Set acl command    
-d -> default behavior    
-m -> modify 
u:www-data: -> for user 
rwx -> adding permissions  
var -> on the folder
0
votes

If you face this error when you start Symfony project with docker (my Symfony version 5.1). Or errors like these:

Uncaught Exception: Failed to write file "/var/www/html/mysite.com.local/var/cache/dev/App_KernelDevDebugContainer.xml"" while reading upstream

Uncaught Warning: file_put_contents(/var/www/html/mysite.com.local/var/cache/dev/App_KernelDevDebugContainerDeprecations.log): failed to open stream: Permission denied" while reading upstream

Fix below helped me.

In Dockerfile for nginx container add line:

RUN usermod -u 1000 www-data

In Dockerfile for php-fpm container add line:

RUN usermod -u 1000 www-data

Then remove everything in directories "/var/cache", "/var/log" and rebuild docker's containers.