On a RedHat server, there is a main php page that calls a php include file (a site footer) from the same directory.

The main php page opens fine. However the footer is not appearing despite the fact that the file is on the server.

The group name for the footer is for some reason different than the group name of the main php page.

My question is could having a different group name, or different file permissions, prevent a php file from being loaded as an include from within another php file?

I've double-checked the source of the main php file and the include is there and there is no php error. Just trying to determine if it's a Linux permissions issue.

What are the permissions? As long as the apache user has "read" is should be okay.

Also, are you using SELinux? Improper File Context can also hinder functionality

--C

Main php file:
owner, group: masterowner

Include php file:
owner, group: grpit
File permissions: r--r--r--

If I run this command to determine group access for 'masterowner' I get:
grep ^masterowner /etc/group
masterowner:x:10030:grpit

So, I read this as the 'grpit' group should have the same permissions as the 'masterowner' group. Is this a correct interpretation?

I'm a newb, so I'm not sure what SELinux is, sorry...

What's the output of...

--C

I got "Disabled" after running getenforce.

I got "-bash: sealert: command not found" after running the selinux command.

MAC works on top of DAC, so I'd have the OP check the web servers access and error log for perm probs first.

Please show full ownerships and perms on both file using 'ls -l' and also show the user+group Apache is running as.
You should also look into the Apache error_log.

It's been ages since I played with PHP, but I seem to recall that if safe_mode was turned on, PHP would only process include files if the file being included was in a certain directory or set of directories. You might want to check your php.ini and see if this feature is enabled. Checking the Apache error_log as mentioned above is also a good idea.

Thanks for the ideas, folks! The problem is fixed, though it's still not entirely clear to me why...

Safe_mode is off.

I checked the /var/log/httpd/error_log file and there is this permission error:
"PHP Warning: include...failed to open stream: Permission denied."

I changed the group name for the include file to match the group name for the main php file and this fixed the problem. Didn't change the file permissions.