PHP ZipArchive doesn't create zip, except when ran manually with php command

Question

Past few hours under the bridge and the zip creation code I'm working with will only create the zip if I run it from a ssh terminal using the php command as in: php zipcreate.php So I know the code works. I'm running this on a ubuntu debian amazon ec2 server. All the relevant files are owned by user ubuntu, the user I'm logged in as when I execute the script manually. It will not work for the life of my when I execute the script from the browser via the sites url. The page loads but no zip.

I've even changed the following lines in etc/apache2/envvars to user ubuntu with no success. export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data

What in the world am I missing. I'm pretty sure I'm not duplicating a question on stack overflow since I've read them all by now.

BTW, here's the zip code just in case: $files = array('test.txt'); $zipname = 'file.zip'; $zip = new ZipArchive; $zip->open($zipname, ZipArchive::CREATE); foreach ($files as $file) { $zip->addFile($file); } $zip->close();

Answer 1

If you can run it as your user but can't with you web app, it means apache's user (www-data) can't write in this directory.

You have to grant www-data write permission on your target directory:

chmod +w /your/target/directory

A more secure way to do it is to change your directory ownership and permissions:

chown -R www-data:www-data /your/target/directory
chmod 775 /your/target/directory #change it if you need