Too many periods in email address

[Snowhog]

you named it apache2test.php not apache2.php.

Doh! I just now tried accessing the file. The URL is https://www.kubuntuforums.net/apache2test.php and now it returns:

string(4) "root" bool(false) bool(false)

[glennrocksvb]

I ran https://www.kubuntuforums.net/apache2test.php and this is the output. It returns false for is_dir and is_writable. That's why the mod logging to CSV doesn't work.

string(4) "root" bool(false) bool(false)

[glennrocksvb]

So it turns out that /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations directory doesn't exist at all.

[Snowhog]

So it turns out that /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations directory doesn't exist at all.

But that is patently untrue!



And I know that the directory is writable by root, as I tested that by creating a .txt file in it while I was logged into our server, and changing to root.

[glennrocksvb]

Update the test PHP file with this:

<?php
$path = '/var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations';
clearstatcache(true, $path);

echo "Input path: $path<br />";
echo "realpath: " . realpath($path) . "<br />";
echo "file_exists: " . (file_exists($path) ? 'true' : 'false') . "<br />";
echo "is_dir: " . (is_dir($path) ? 'true' : 'false') . "<br />";
echo "is_writable: " . (is_writable($path) ? 'true' : 'false') . "<br />";
echo "Current user: " . exec('whoami') . "<br />";
echo "PHP SAPI: " . php_sapi_name() . "<br />";
echo "open_basedir: " . ini_get('open_basedir') . "<br />";

[Snowhog]

Done.

Input path: /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
realpath:
file_exists: false
is_dir: false
is_writable: false
Current user: www-data
PHP SAPI: apache2handler
open_basedir:

[glennrocksvb]

Thanks, this output reveals the root cause very clearly. PHP can't see the path (realpath is empty). This is because the PHP actually runs as www-data. You have 2 options to fix this issue:

Option 1: Change owner to www-data. PHP can read/write, others cannot.

sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
sudo chmod 750 /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations

Option 2: Keep owner as root (e.g., for system oversight), but change group to www-data to allow PHP write access.

sudo chown root:www-data /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
sudo chmod 770 /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations

[Snowhog]

You have 2 options to fix this issue:

Just tried both options. The output from running apache2test.php from the browser is the same.

First:
chown to www-data:www-data /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
chmod to 750 /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations

Results:

Input path: /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
realpath:
file_exists: false
is_dir: false
is_writable: false
Current user: www-data
PHP SAPI: apache2handler
open_basedir:

Second:
chown to root:www-data /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
chmod to 770 /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations

Results:

Input path: /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
realpath:
file_exists: false
is_dir: false
is_writable: false
Current user: www-data
PHP SAPI: apache2handler
open_basedir:

[glennrocksvb]

It seems that although PHP has the right permissions to the directory, the parent directory (/var/log/apache2) permissions prevent www-data from accessing it. It's not recommended to open up /var/log/apache2 so I advise you to move the CSV directory outside /var/log/apache2 and place it in a dedicated storage path, like /var/www/data.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/data/blockedregistrations
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/data
sudo chmod -R 750 /var/www/data

Then change the mod settings for the CSV path to /var/www/data/blockedregistrations

[glennrocksvb]

Then change the mod settings for the CSV path to /var/www/data/blockedregistrations

The CSV path should actually be /var/www/data/blockedregistrations/blockedusers or whatever filename (red part) you want to use.

[Snowhog]

Success!

root@kfn1:/var/www/data/blockedregistrations# list
total 12
drwxr-x--- 2 www-data www-data 4096 2025-09-23 18:12:07 .
drwxr-x--- 3 www-data www-data 4096 2025-09-23 18:06:47 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data  222 2025-09-23 18:12:07 gmail_block_log.csv

​

root@kfn1:/var/www/data/blockedregistrations# cat gmail_block_log.csv
Date,Email,Username,"IP Address",Useragent
"2025-09-23 18:12:07",[email protected],justsomenewguy,66.41.172.97,"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:144.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/144.0"

​

[Snowhog]

The CSV path should actually be /var/www/data/blockedregistrations/blockedusers or whatever filename you want to use.

Well, I didn't do that; did as you said just before, so the path I have is:

/var/www/data/blockedregistrations

and the file was created anyway. Why?

[glennrocksvb]

Success!

FInally! 😊

and the file was created anyway. Why?

I coded the mod to automatically create the CSV file with a default filename gmail_block_log if filename is not specified. 😎

[glennrocksvb]

BTW, do not forget to delete the apache2test.php file.

[Snowhog]

I coded the mod to automatically create the CSV file with a default filename gmail_block_log if filename is not specified.

Kinda figured that was the case, after I asked the question.

BTW, do not forget to delete the apache2test.php file.

Done.

Thank you very much for seeing me through this. Very much appreciated!