Permission denied with Rails 3.1, paperclip gem and nginx

Question

Using Rails 3.1 with the paperclip gem on nginx I get the following 500 error when attempting to upload images:

Permission denied - /webapps/my_rails_app/public/system

Observing the guidance offered elsewhere on this issue, I have modified my directory permissions such that

drwxr-xr-x 3 www-data www-data 4096 Mar 10 17:57 system

And, it would appear, this permission structure is maintained for all public sub-directories.

Yet, having restarted nginx, the error persists.

Do I need to modify nginx.conf or take another hack at permissioning the affected directory?

Answer 1

When I've run into this in the past, it's generally because the Rails application was started by a user or process that is not a part of the www-data group, and is not the www-data user. I'd first check to confirm that the www-data is in fact running your app.

This can be done using ps awwwx and perhaps some grep logic to find your app in the process stack.

I might suggest that you change the directory permissions to allow any member of the www-data group to write to the directory as well.