In Laravel, the storage and bootstrap/cache directories need write permissions for the web server to function properly. Incorrect permissions can prevent Laravel from creating log files, caching data, and storing session information.
Here’s how to set up the correct permissions:
Step 1: Change Ownership of the storage and bootstrap/cache Directories
Laravel’s storage and bootstrap/cache directories need to be owned by the web server user. On most Linux servers, this user is www-data, but it can vary (e.g., apache on CentOS).
Run the following commands to set ownership:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/your/laravel_project/storage
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/your/laravel_project/bootstrap/cache
Replace /path/to/your/laravel_project with the path to your Laravel application.
Step 2: Set Write Permissions
Once ownership is set, update the permissions to allow read, write, and execute access for the web server:
sudo chmod -R 775 /path/to/your/laravel_project/storage
sudo chmod -R 775 /path/to/your/laravel_project/bootstrap/cache
Step 3: Verify Permissions
You can confirm that permissions are set correctly by running:
ls -ld /path/to/your/laravel_project/storage
ls -ld /path/to/your/laravel_project/bootstrap/cache
The output should show that the www-data user has read, write, and execute permissions on both directories.
Summary
By setting the correct ownership and permissions on the storage and bootstrap/cache directories, you ensure Laravel can write to the necessary files. This setup is essential for log generation, caching, and other functionalities that require persistent storage.