mail: failed to open stream: Permission denied?

Question

I get this warning sending mails with php Warning: mail(1) [function.mail]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/...

• using ssmtp and gmail as smtp
• PHP 5.3.1
• nothing in the logs (no errors)
• the mail gets to destination
• the permissions of the files are rwxrxrx

Permission denied to what?

Even calling something as simple as

mail("[email protected]", "subject", "body");

I still getting this warning

Answer 1

The problem is that the webserver user is not able to write and/or read the mail log file. For a propper configuration:

1) create the folder and the file for the email logging. For example:

touch /var/log/php5/mail.log

2) set the logging file in php.ini:

mail.log = /var/log/php5/mail.log

3) set the owner and the group for that folder/file in case needed:

check the owner and the group with

ls -la /var/log/php5

in case needed, change the group (change www-data for whatever your web server's group is)

sudo chgrp -R www-data /var/log/php5

in case needed, change the owner (change www-data for whatever your web server's user is)

sudo chown -R www-data /var/log/php5