PHP not inserting images into directory - php

Question

I've got a PHP script that receives data from users. The script is hosted on an AWS EC2 instance running Apache, PHP and PostGreSQL.
Here's the script:
$chars = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789';
$length = 5;
$fileName = '';
for($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++) {
$fileName .= $chars[mt_rand(0, 36)];
}
$filePath = "uploads/$fileName.jpg";
$encoded_photo = $_POST['snap'];
echo $encoded_photo;
$photo = base64_decode($encoded_photo);
$file = fopen($filePath, 'wb');
fwrite($file, $photo);
fclose($file);
So a random filename is generated for the photo and then the $filePath variable is inserted into the PostGreSQL.
However when I check the uploads/ directory it's empty. No JPEGs to be found. I believe my code to be correct, perhaps the permissions of the directory aren't correct? Could any provide any guidance?
Please note I have host=localhost port=5432 dbname=*** user=**** password=**** in my pg_connect() method.

Answer 1

Apache needs to be able to write to the uploads/ directory. One way to do this is to put the Apache user into the group on uploads/ and make sure the group has write permission on the directory.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7283068/how-to-add-an-existing-user-into-a-group-in-linux
This will give the group write permission: chmod g+w uploads/