Drush can't write to /tmp

Question

Drush does not seem to be able to move files to the tmp folder on my local machine. Changing the tmp folder location to for instance "sites/default/files" works, but I would like to know why it doesn't work with /tmp.

I am using this script from the fontawesome module:

$this->fileSystem->move($path . '/fontawesome-free-' . $fontawesome_library['version'] . '-web', $this->fileSystem->getTempDirectory() . '/temp_fontawesome', FileSystemInterface::EXISTS_REPLACE);

and I get the error

The specified file '/home/username/websites/frilaering_newest/web/libraries/fontawesome/fontawesome-free-6.1.0-web' could not be moved to '/tmp/temp_fontawesome'.

The weird thing is that everything else seems to work - including file uploads, which uses the tmp folder - so can this be related to Drush somehow? I'm using Drush installed on the local website with composer. Everything looks fine in Drush status.

• www-data can write to /tmp
• /tmp is chmodded to 777
• .htaccess file is present in /tmp folder
• settings.local.php has "$settings["file_temp_path"] = '/tmp';"

I have tried anything - even fiddling with PrivateTmp, but the only thing that works is changing the tmp folder, which I would rather avoid.

I am using Drupal 9 with php7.3-fpm/apache2/mariaDB on latest Ubuntu

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Reason

Probably the /tmp/temp_fontawesome directory has already been created by the web server user www-data.

The permissions for /tmp/temp_fontawesome are probably:

ls -lash /tmp/temp_fontawesome
4,0K drwxrwxr-x  3 www-data www-data 4,0K sep 21 13:55

...which means that your user, which is running drush, is not permitted to write to /tmp/temp_fontawesome because other has no write permision r-x, indicated by - instead of w.

Solution A

Change the Linux group permissions, so that your user (called for example drupaladmin) running drush, is allowed to write to the directory:

sudo chgrp -R drupaladmin /tmp/temp_fontawesome
sudo chmod g+w -R /tmp/temp_fontawesome

ls -lash /tmp/temp_fontawesome
4,0K drwxrwxr-x  3 www-data drupaladmin  4,0K sep 21 13:56

Solution A (could sometimes be the other way around)

If the directory is created by drush through your user first, then www-data cannot write to it. In that case the commands would be:

sudo chgrp -R www-data /tmp/temp_fontawesome
sudo chmod g+w -R /tmp/temp_fontawesome

Solution B

Remove the directory (drush can then create the directory with your user as the owner):

sudo rm -r /tmp/temp_fontawesome