All directories listed as unwritable

Question

Previous title: Can't install extensions: Error: Archive does not exist

I removed and reinstalled Joomla 3.3.6 on my CentOS 6.5 server. Wanted to install some backup utilities and a CCK. However i'm stuck trying to install extensions getting errors like:

Error
Archive does not exist

Warning
JFolder: :files: Path is not a folder. Path: /var/www/html/jrt/install_54b9d8947a105
JFolder: :folder: Path is not a folder. Path: /var/www/html/jrt/install_54b9d8947a105
JFolder: :files: Path is not a folder. Path: /var/www/html/jrt/install_54b9d8947a105
JInstaller: :Install: Cannot find Joomla XML setup file

This screams permission error but this is the permission on the jrt(tmp) folder

drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root  4096 Jan 16 22:32 jrt

Most of the suggestions for this are to set it to 777 but I should think that to be a bad practice and it does not work anyway. I am used to NTFS permissions and I think I need to set the permissions on the children of this folder but its contents are empty to there is nothing to change?

I've seen this sad story a few times on the web and its path or permissions related. I know the path exists as if I delete the folder I also get the error

JFolder: :folder: Path is not a folder. Path: /var/www/html/jrt

I don't know if there is more to testing this but PHP Handler also came up in research and since I did update PHP so that I could run this version of Joomla perhaps it is also a culprit. To test I created a small php file

<?php
   print "hello world";
?>

To see if it would display "hello world" which indeed it did.

PHP ini

An answer asked me to change to PHP.ini settings. Here is what I changed from the defaults. Making changes here does not rectify the errors.

upload_max_filesize = 10M
post_max_size = 11M
max_input_time = 300
max_execution_time = 120
default_socket_timeout = 120

Permissions

After checking the correct part of the admin console System > System Information > Directory Permissions not a single entry here is listed as writable. Do I need to edit each folder tree? Again I don't think that setting 777 on these folders is a good idea ( or work ). For example it list my temp folder as unwritable but it looks like the correct permissions above.

I tried also to change the group owner on the html root folder so now all folders and files have apache as a group. No change so far.

Apache errors

This is what I get when I try to install an extension

[Sat Jan 17 19:24:02 2015] [error] [client 123.123.123.123] PHP Warning:  file_put_contents(/var/www/html/jrt/plg_webinstaller_3.2v1.0.5.zip): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /var/www/html/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 431, referer: http://mywebsite.ca/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer
[Sat Jan 17 19:24:02 2015] [error] [client 123.123.123.123] PHP Warning:  array_merge(): Argument #1 is not an array in /var/www/html/libraries/cms/installer/helper.php on line 154, referer: http://mywebsite.ca/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer
[Sat Jan 17 19:24:02 2015] [error] [client 123.123.123.123] PHP Warning:  Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/libraries/cms/installer/helper.php on line 207, referer: http://mywebsite.ca/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer
[Sat Jan 17 20:39:06 2015] [error] [client 123.123.123.123] PHP Warning:  file_put_contents(/var/www/html/jrt/plg_webinstaller_3.2v1.0.5.zip): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /var/www/html/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 431, referer: http://mywebsite.ca/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer
[Sat Jan 17 20:39:06 2015] [error] [client 123.123.123.123] PHP Warning:  array_merge(): Argument #1 is not an array in /var/www/html/libraries/cms/installer/helper.php on line 154, referer: http://mywebsite.ca/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer
[Sat Jan 17 20:39:06 2015] [error] [client 123.123.123.123] PHP Warning:  Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/libraries/cms/installer/helper.php on line 207, referer: http://mywebsite.ca/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer

Answer 1

Big shout to @VilleNiemi for his troubleshooting getting me on the write path. ( Yes I used write instead of right as a pun.) My Directory Permissions appeared to be the source of my problem.

Solution if host is dedictated

I thought that changing the changing the group from root to apache would fix the issue but nothing changed. After reading another post on Joomla Forum I saw someone change the owner of the folders and files. So after I ran the following

sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/

Then, after refreshing my screen, I see the colour green again.

So the files on the root of my web directory are set for permissions with 744. Folders with 755 and files in said folders are 644. Think I'm all set for now.

Succesfully installed the first plugin on my site. Off to the races with me!

Solution if shared host.

Will post something more verbose once its complete but a good read comes from Dionysopoulos which is linked in this answer 4. It talks about permission pitfalls and why my dedicated host solution is bad in general and especially bad for shared host providers.

Answer 2

The "archive does not exist" kind of suggests that Joomla! failed to upload the archive. Which leads to the archive failing to decompress and the contents not being moved to the expected folder. Which means the expected folder will not exist.

Either your PHP has an upload limit that is too low for the files in question or your tmp path is incorrect. If you installed PHP yourself, the relevant settings are probably still at their defaults which are 2MB and too small. In php.ini set upload_max_filesize and post_max_size to some higher value.

While you are at that also increase max_execution_time as it causes very annoying issues if it times out in the middle of installs or updates.