Permissions Issues

Upon first install, I clicked “Run Batch Process” and watched the number go down. There’s a “log output” on the bottom of the screen, which remained blank at all times. However, visiting /laiser-tag-sitemap.xml was a 404 error. I tried creating that XML file and running it again, but now it was just blank. There were no error messages anywhere in WordPress.

Looking at nginx error logs:

2018/08/25 20:43:29 [error] 19490#19490: *74 FastCGI sent in stderr: "PHP message: PHP Warning:  touch(): Unable to create file ltoc_logger.txt because Permission denied in [REDACTED]/wp-content/plugins/laiser-tag/include/Tagging.php on line 492
PHP message: PHP Warning:  file_get_contents(ltoc_logger.txt): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [REDACTED]/wp-content/plugins/laiser-tag/include/Tagging.php on line 494
PHP message: PHP Warning:  file_get_contents(ltoc_logger.txt): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [REDACTED]/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/laiser-tag/include/Tagging.php on line 495" while reading response header from upstream, client: [REDACTED], server: [REDACTED], request: "GET /?action=ltoc-log-output HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock:", host: "[REDACTED]", referrer: "[REDACTED]wp-admin/admin.php?page=laiser-tag"

In other words, the plugin was experiencing permissions issues and it did not create any errors within the WordPress UI. I made sure that all of the WordPress upload and upgrade folders, including the entire plugin folder had sufficient permissions. However, the behavior continued.

It appears the plugin is actually writing files in the *root* folder, including “ltoc_logger.txt” and “ltoc_tagging.pid”. Root, as in https://www.example.com/ltoc_logger.txt.

I tried creating both of those files for the plugin, and chmoding it permissively. However, it refused to run when ltoc_tagging.pid was present. It seemed the only solution would be to permissively provide permissions for the entirety of the directory, which is not ideal for security reasons. I did it to see if it would work, and there were suddenly log entries.

It would be wonderful if the plugin: (1) stored files in a location other than the root folder for security and permissions management purposes, (2) had error messages that indicated when the plugin experiences permissions issues, and (3) on first install, if the plugin could also detect if it has permission and provide guided steps to remedy any issues.

Thank you!