unlink and exec permissions problems

[conryf]

Hi I'm running php 5.3 on a Ubuntu 10.04 server and I'm having some wierd permissions issues.

 

The most straightforward one is this file:

 

$resource = mysql_query("select * from book_expiration_dates where DATEDIFF(NOW(), expiration_date)");

 

while( $obj = mysql_fetch_object($resource) )

{

    $bid = $obj->bid;

    $ext = $obj->ext;

 

    $cat_res1 = mysql_query("select main_genre,  filename from books where id=$bid");

    $cat_obj1 = mysql_fetch_object($cat_res1);

 

    $cat_res2 = mysql_query("select g1.identifier as child, g2.identifier as parent from genres g1, genres g2 where g1.id=" . $cat_obj1->main_genre ." and g1.parent_id=g2.id");

    $cat_obj2 = mysql_fetch_object($cat_res2);

 

    $unlink_path = "/var/www/content/" . $cat_obj2->parent .'/' .$cat_obj2->child . '/' . $cat_obj1->filename . '.' . strtolower($ext);

 

    echo "unlinking $unlink_path<br>";

    unlink($unlink_path);

}

 

So, all the directories in question are 755, owned by www-data and with group www-data and running it from the command line I get a permissions error. Now if I change the directories permissions to 777 and execute the php file from the command line it can delete the file, however, if I run it in a browser it will not.

 

What baffles me is that I need 777 permission at all since php is the owner of these files. Are there any factors I'm overlooksing?

 

Thanks!