Cache Permissions

Our app is a big 500 error because Symfony can't write to its cache directory.

This is an easy fix... well mostly. Let's start with the easy part: if we 777 the var/ directory, we should be good.

Add a new task at the end: "Fix var directory permissions":

            
            163 lines
            
            ansible/playbook.yml
        
            ---
            
            - hosts: vb
            
                                                    ... lines 3 - 9
                            
              tasks:
            
                                                    ... lines 11 - 143
                            
                - name: Fix var directory permissions
            
                                                    ... lines 145 - 163

To refer to the var/ directory, I'll create another variable: symfony_var_dir set to {{ symfony_root_dir }}/var:

            
            163 lines
            
            ansible/playbook.yml
        
            ---
            
            - hosts: vb
            
              vars:
            
                                                    ... line 5
                            
                symfony_root_dir: /var/www/project
            
                                                    ... line 7
                            
                symfony_var_dir: "{{ symfony_root_dir }}/var"
            
                                                    ... lines 9 - 163

Back at the bottom, use the file module, set the path to the new variable, and state to directory:

            
            163 lines
            
            ansible/playbook.yml
        
            ---
            
            - hosts: vb
            
                                                    ... lines 3 - 9
                            
              tasks:
            
                                                    ... lines 11 - 143
                            
                - name: Fix var directory permissions
            
                  file:
            
                    path: "{{ symfony_var_dir }}"
            
                    state: directory
            
                                                    ... lines 148 - 163

That'll create the directory if it doesn't exist, but, it should. Then, they key part: mode: 0777 and recurse: yes:

            
            163 lines
            
            ansible/playbook.yml
        
            ---
            
            - hosts: vb
            
                                                    ... lines 3 - 9
                            
              tasks:
            
                                                    ... lines 11 - 143
                            
                - name: Fix var directory permissions
            
                  file:
            
                    path: "{{ symfony_var_dir }}"
            
                    state: directory
            
                    mode: 0777
            
                    recurse: yes
            
                                                    ... lines 150 - 163

Tip

If you're going to 777 your var/ directory, make sure that you've uncommented the umask calls in app.php, app_dev.php and bin/console:

            
            26 lines
            
            web/app.php
        
            <?php
            
                                                    ... lines 2 - 4
                            
            // If you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
            
            // read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#checking-symfony-application-configuration-and-setup
            
            // for more information
            
            umask(0000);
            
                                                    ... lines 9 - 26

            
            33 lines
            
            web/app_dev.php
        
            <?php
            
                                                    ... lines 2 - 5
                            
            // If you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
            
            // read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#checking-symfony-application-configuration-and-setup
            
            // for more information
            
            umask(0000);
            
                                                    ... lines 10 - 33

30 lines bin/console

	#!/usr/bin/env php

	... lines 3 - 7
	// if you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
	// read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#configuration-and-setup for more information
	umask(0000);
	... lines 11 - 30

You can see this in the finished code download.

Ok, run the playbook!

ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml -i ansible/hosts.ini

By the way, needing to re-run the entire playbook after a tiny change is annoying! We'll learn a trick in a minute to help with this.

Done! Ok, switch back to your browser and try it. Woohoo! A working Symfony project... not our project yet, but still, winning! We'll use our real project next.

Fixing Permissions... in a more Secure Way?

Setting the directory permissions to 777 is easy... and perfectly fine for a development machine. But if this were a production machine, well, 777 isn't ideal... though honestly, a lot of people do this.

What's better? In a few minutes, we'll add a task to clear and warm up Symfony's cache. On a production machine, after you've done that, you can set the var/cache permissions back to be non-writeable, so 555. In theory, that should just work! But in practice, you'll probably need to tweak a few other settings to use non-filesystem cache - like making annotations cache in APC.

But, that's more about deployment - which we'll save for a different course!

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Cache Permissions

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Fixing Permissions... in a more Secure Way?

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