Suggestion: Note recursive nature of directory permission checks in installer

[Henning Kockerbeck]

Hi,

I just upgraded our adserver installation to Revive 3.2.4, and one of the directory permission checks turned out to be a bit missleading or incomplete, IMHO. The installer persistently complained that revive_dir/var were not writable, even though it clearly was. All the other checks were fine, even though those directories had the same owner, group and permissions as revive_dir/var. It took me some time to figure out it wasn't the directory itself that was the problem, but the config file in it that I had transferred over from the old installation. That file was not writable, and because the permission check for revive_dir/var is recursive, the installer reckons that the directory were not writable.

I know that it's noted in the upgrading instructions that some directories and the files in those need to be writable, but IMHO that's very easy to read over. So more exhaustive information in the installer might be a good idea. I'm thinking about something like "directory xyz is not writable (maybe caused by not writable files or subdirectories in that directory)".

Additionally, a config file without write permissions seems good practice to me, so my problem might be quite common. So an additional permission check for the config file might be a good idea. That way, people get pointed more clearly to the fact that the problem's not with the directory itself, but with the config file.

Yours,

Henning