error: cannot open .git/FETCH_HEAD: Permission denied when using php script for git pull

Question

I mad simple php script for git pull

<?php
$output = shell_exec("cd /var/www/domain.tld/html/test/ && git pull 2>&1");
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";

named it git.php and gave it 755

the output was

error: cannot open .git/FETCH_HEAD: Permission denied

but when try from the terminal

$ git pull
Already up-to-date.

i checked the directories ownership , my user is "savvy"

drwxrwsr-x  4 savvy savvy     4096 Jul 13 05:40 test

and the files inside

$ ls -la test/
total 20
drwxrwsr-x 4 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:38 ..
drwxrwsr-x 8 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:41 .git
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy   19 Jul 13 05:39 test.php

.git

$ ls -la .git/
total 60
drwxrwsr-x 8 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:41 .
drwxrwsr-x 4 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:40 ..
drwxrwsr-x 2 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:39 branches
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy  268 Jul 13 05:39 config
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy   73 Jul 13 05:39 description
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy   97 Jul 13 05:41 FETCH_HEAD
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy   23 Jul 13 05:39 HEAD
drwxrwsr-x 2 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:39 hooks
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy  104 Jul 13 05:41 index
drwxrwsr-x 2 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:39 info
drwxrwsr-x 3 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:39 logs
drwxrwsr-x 4 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:39 objects
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy   41 Jul 13 05:40 ORIG_HEAD
-rw-rwSr-- 1 savvy savvy  107 Jul 13 05:39 packed-refs
drwxrwsr-x 5 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 05:39 refs

~/.ssh

drwx------ 2 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 04:56 .ssh

inside

$ ls -la .ssh/
total 36
drwx------ 2 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 13 04:56 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 savvy savvy 4096 Jul 12 08:34 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 savvy savvy  398 Jul 12 05:46 authorized_keys
-rw-rw-r-- 1 savvy savvy   59 Jul 11 10:10 config
-rw------- 1 savvy savvy 1679 Jul 11 07:44 id_rsa
-rw-rw-r-- 1 savvy savvy  398 Jul 12 05:21 id_rsa.pub
-rw-r--r-- 1 savvy savvy 1768 Jul 13 05:08 known_hosts

calling it from the url : domain.tld/git.php and created git.php with savvy user — Savvy
– Savvy, Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 10:47
The url is served by a webserver, which is running as which user? You may need to add the webserver's user to your group. — xxfelixxx
– xxfelixxx, Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 10:48
$ ps aux|grep nginx|grep -v grep root 12433 0.0 0.2 85892 1400 ? Ss Jul12 0:00 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx www-data 12435 0.0 0.3 86188 1620 ? S Jul12 0:09 nginx: worker process www-data 12436 0.0 0.4 86556 2104 ? S Jul12 0:01 nginx: worker process www-data 12437 0.0 0.3 86188 1620 ? S Jul12 0:09 nginx: worker process www-data 12438 0.0 0.3 86532 1868 ? S Jul12 0:08 nginx: worker process — Savvy
– Savvy, Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 10:53

marc_s · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-07 13:39:12Z

1

I solve this problem by the following

Step #1: copy /home/savvy/.ssh to /var/www/

# cp -R /home/savvy/.ssh /var/www/

Step #2: gave the /var/www directory to www-data user

# chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/

Step #3: login as www-data user

$ su
Password: 
# su -s /bin/bash www-data

Step #4: clone the repo into my directory /var/www/domain.tld/html/test/

Step #5: call the git.php file i made already domain.tld/git.php

Result

From bitbucket.org:repo/test
8e9f67c..185cd9e  master     -> origin/master
Updating 8e9f67c..185cd9e
Fast-forward
test.php | 1 +
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

edited Dec 7, 2022 at 13:39

marc_s

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answered Jul 14, 2016 at 9:17

Savvy

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1 Comment

Michael Jess Over a year ago

In my setup I have a git repo with group write access, and the solution was to add www-data to that group: sudo gpasswd -a www-data mygitgroup. After restarting apache2 in systemctl calling the PHP script would now successfully fetch from Git.

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