使用Symlink的PHP / Linux Readfile路径

Question

I want to move my data directory outside of the web root. I have file paths stored in my database and would like to be able to redirect looking for files through a symlink instead of having to change the saved paths.

Example, currently I have a structure like this:

/root/webroot/data/file.ext

And my database path will be: /root/webroot/data/file.ext as well. I'd like to move data outside of webroot so I have:

/root/data/file.ext
/root/webroot/data -> root/data

Where /root/webroot/data is a linux style symlink to root/data. I have set this up, but when I do a readfile on the previously stored path (/root/webroot/data/file.ext) it fails. Ie I do this:

readfile('/root/webroot/data/file.ext');

I get back:

Warning:  readfile(/root/webroot/data/file.ext) [function.readfile]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [file] on line ...

Is there anything I can do to help these paths resolve?

Note: The permissions of the folders and files all match. That of the symlink is root:root, from which it was created, but chown doesn't seem to work on it.

Answer 1

Where are you running the script from? If you are calling the directory without the leading slash:

readfile('root/webroot/data/file.ext');

then you better make sure it is running in the same directory root is sitting in. However, if you are running this from webroot, you will need to update the readfile path to something like:

readfile('data/file.ext');