PHP - include using $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] gives permission denied although its 777?

Question

I'm trying to get the root of my app in order to include files starting from it.. I use this

include_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/includes/myfile.php'

It show this error:

Warning: include_once(/usr/local/apache/htdocs/includes/db.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: Permission denied .....etc

Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening '/usr/local/apache/htdocs/includes/myfile.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/usernamehere/public_html/includes/parentfile.php on line 14

but when use part of $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] (which equals '/home/username/public_html/parentfile.php') like this:

include_once '/home/username/public_html/includes/myfile.php';

It works correctly with no errors.

Is it a permission issue from server administrator side? Or I can solve it from mine?

I.e. checked the permissions/ownership/grouup for /usr/, /usr/local/ ... — Ed Heal
@Dabbas Just posted an answer. The details are clear in the error messages you see. $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is for the whole web server, but not per-user public_html directories. — Giacomo1968

Giacomo1968 Giacomo1968 · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-18T20:53:25

This does not work because it this:

include_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']  . '/includes/myfile.php';

That $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] refers to the absolute web server main document root for the web server itself. Not per-user public_html web directories. Which is why this works:

include_once '/home/username/public_html/includes/myfile.php';

Is it a permission issue from server administrator side? Or I can solve it from mine?

1,000,000% no. This is simply an understanding of what path is what & why on a server.

Also, 777 permissions are horrible & a security risk. If the first think you believe needs to be done to solve an issue like this is to just go chmod 777 you are not solving the problem & creating a security risk.

777 means that 100% of anyone can read, write or execute that file. And that is just not needed for PHP running under Apache.

For a PHP file it can jet be 664 or 644 because PHP files do not need to be executed. They just need to be read by the file system & then parsed by the Apache PHP module.

That said, if you are trying to simplify the way that files are loaded, you should explicitly set a $BASE_PATH like this:

$BASE_PATH = '/home/username/public_html/';

And then set your include_once like this:

include_once $BASE_PATH  . 'includes/myfile.php';

Automatting the way file paths are set for installs just never works well. Best just to manually set a $BASE_PATH in a config file when you move code than deal with the headaches caused by PHP constants like $_SERVER not being consistent between installs, setups & configurations.

PHP - include using $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] gives permission denied although its 777?

2 Answers