PHP can't write despite having permissions - php

Question

I'm trying to set up prestashop but can't get php to recognize write permissions.
I'm getting the following error
You need to grant write permissions for PHP on the following directory: /usr/share/nginx/presta
output of ls -la
total 75960
drwxr-xr-x 2 http http 4096 Oct 5 23:45 .
drwxrwxrwx 5 root root 4096 Oct 5 20:58 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 http http 690272 Sep 14 12:00 index.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 http http 441 Jun 15 11:32 Install_PrestaShop.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 http http 77073848 Sep 14 12:00 prestashop.zip
I'm using nginx on arch here's http server config
server {
# Ipv4
listen 82 ssl;
# IPv6
# listen [::]:80;
# SSL Ipv4 & v6
# listen 443 ssl http2;
# listen [::]:443 ssl;
# Your SSL Certificates, don't forget to take a look at Certbot (https://certbot.eff.org)
# ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/fullchain.pem;
# ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/privkey.pem;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/domain.tld/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/domain.tld/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:1m;
ssl_session_timeout 5m;
ssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
# ssl_session_timeout 24h;
# ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
# ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
# ssl_ciphers ECDH+AESGCM:ECDH+AES256:ECDH+AES128:DH+3DES:RSA+3DES:AES128-SHA:!ADH:!AECDH:!MD5;
# ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
# Do not forget to create this file before with OpenSSL : "openssl dhparam -out /etc/nginx/ssl/dhparam.pem 2048"
# ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/ssl/dhparam.pem;
# [REQUIRED EDIT] Your domain name goes here
server_name domain.tld;
# [REQUIRED EDIT] Absolute path to your website root on the filesystem
root /usr/share/nginx/presta;
index index.php;
# Redirect 404 errors to prestashop
error_page 404 /index.php?controller=404;
# Gzip Settings, convert all types.
gzip on;
gzip_vary on;
gzip_proxied any;
# Can be enhance to 5, but it can slow you server
# gzip_comp_level 5;
# gzip_min_length 256;
gzip_types
application/atom+xml
application/javascript
application/json
application/ld+json
application/manifest+json
application/rss+xml
application/vnd.geo+json
application/vnd.ms-fontobject
application/x-font-ttf
application/x-web-app-manifest+json
application/xhtml+xml
application/xml
font/opentype
image/bmp
image/svg+xml
image/x-icon
text/cache-manifest
text/css
text/plain
text/vcard
text/vnd.rim.location.xloc
text/vtt
text/x-component
text/x-cross-domain-policy;
gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.(?!.*SV1)";
# HSTS (Force clients to interact with your website using HTTPS only)
# For enhanced security, register your site here: https://hstspreload.org/
# WARNING: Don't use this if your site is not fully on HTTPS!
# add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains" preload; always;
# Cloudflare / Max CDN fix
location ~* \.(eot|otf|ttf|woff(?:2)?)$ {
add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
}
# Force pdf files to be downloaded
location ~* \.pdf$ {
add_header Content-Disposition Attachment;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
}
# Force files in upload directory to be downloaded
location ~ ^/upload/ {
add_header Content-Disposition Attachment;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
}
# Do not save logs for these
location = /favicon.ico {
auth_basic off;
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location = /robots.txt {
auth_basic off;
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
# [REQUIRED EDIT] if you are using multiple languages
# rewrite ^/fr$ /fr/ redirect;
# rewrite ^/fr/(.*) /$1;
# Images
rewrite ^/([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$1$2$3.jpg last;
rewrite ^/([0-9])([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$2/$1$2$3$4.jpg last;
rewrite ^/([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$2/$3/$1$2$3$4$5.jpg last;
rewrite ^/([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$2/$3/$4/$1$2$3$4$5$6.jpg last;
rewrite ^/([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$2/$3/$4/$5/$1$2$3$4$5$6$7.jpg last;
rewrite ^/([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$2/$3/$4/$5/$6/$1$2$3$4$5$6$7$8.jpg last;
rewrite ^/([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$2/$3/$4/$5/$6/$7/$1$2$3$4$5$6$7$8$9.jpg last;
rewrite ^/([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])([0-9])(-[_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)?(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/p/$1/$2/$3/$4/$5/$6/$7/$8/$1$2$3$4$5$6$7$8$9$10.jpg last;
rewrite ^/c/([0-9]+)(-[.*_a-zA-Z0-9-]*)(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/c/$1$2$3.jpg last;
rewrite ^/c/([a-zA-Z_-]+)(-[0-9]+)?/.+.jpg$ /img/c/$1$2.jpg last;
# AlphaImageLoader for IE and fancybox
rewrite ^images_ie/?([^/]+)\.(jpe?g|png|gif)$ js/jquery/plugins/fancybox/images/$1.$2 last;
# Web service API
rewrite ^/api/?(.*)$ /webservice/dispatcher.php?url=$1 last;
# Installation sandbox
rewrite ^(/install(?:-dev)?/sandbox)/(.*) /$1/test.php last;
# without this line nginx seo url not working.
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
# [REQUIRED EDIT] Change this block to your admin folder
location /admin-dev/ {
if (!-e $request_filename) {
rewrite ^/.*$ /admin-dev/index.php last;
}
}
# File security
# .htaccess .DS_Store .htpasswd etc
location ~ /\. {
deny all;
}
# Source code directories
location ~ ^/(app|bin|cache|classes|config|controllers|docs|localization|override|src|tests|tests-legacy|tools|translations|travis-scripts|vendor|var)/ {
deny all;
}
# vendor in modules directory
location ~ ^/modules/.*/vendor/ {
deny all;
}
# Prevent exposing other sensitive files
location ~ \.(yml|log|tpl|twig|sass)$ {
deny all;
}
# Prevent injection of php files
location /upload {
location ~ \.php$ {
deny all;
}
}
location /img {
location ~ \.php$ {
deny all;
}
}
# PHP FPM part
location ~ \.php$ {
# Verify that the file exists, redirect to index if not
try_files $fastcgi_script_name /index.php$uri&$args =404;
fastcgi_index index.php;
# Environment variables for PHP
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED $document_root$fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
# [REQUIRED EDIT] Connection to PHP-FPM - choose one
# fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
# fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_keep_conn on;
fastcgi_read_timeout 30s;
fastcgi_send_timeout 30s;
# In case of long loading or 502 / 504 errors
# fastcgi_buffer_size 256k;
# fastcgi_buffers 256 16k;
# fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k;
client_max_body_size 16M;
}
}
PHP is running under the http user, confirmed that by running a file containing <?php echo `whoami`; ?> from the browser.
A simple php file using fwrite also fails.
And yes I tried changing permissions of all files and dirs to 777/666 to check if maybe somehow php ran under different user but it did nothing.

Answer 1

Why install PrstaShop there?
It is customary to install it in the webserver root which for linux bases servers is either /var/www (/var/www/html) or chrooted user directories.
PHP will have no issue there.