Touch a file as sudo - php

Question

How can I touch a file as sudo when using [Symfony's Filesystem][1]?
So far I have:
$fs = new Filesystem();
$confFile = sprintf('/etc/apache2/sites-available/%s.conf', $input->getArgument('name'));
$fs->touch($confFile);
But this code fails with error: Permission denied.
[1]: http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/filesystem/introduction.html

Answer 1

From the Symfony Filesystem component:
public function touch($files, $time = null, $atime = null)
{
foreach ($this->toIterator($files) as $file) {
$touch = $time ? #touch($file, $time, $atime) : #touch($file);
if (true !== $touch) {
throw new IOException(sprintf('Failed to touch "%s".', $file), 0, null, $file);
}
}
}
As you see there, the touch() method is just a simple wrapper around PHP's buildin touch() function. If you need to run touch with elevated rights via sudo, you have to call it directly:
shell_exec('sudo touch ' . escapeshellarg($file));

Answer 2

you need to change the rights on /etc/apache2/sites-available/ to add write access to apache user
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" /etc/apache2/sites-available/