We had this problem too in some applications. This was our solution :
Our webserver user is called "www", member of a group called "laravel". Composer user is also member of this "laravel" group :
## create user group
sudo groupadd laravel
## add composer user to group
sudo gpasswd -a yourlogin laravel
## add web server to group
sudo gpasswd -a www laravel
First, reset/set all permissions in your project :
## jump to laravel path
cd /path/to/your/laravel-application
## optional: if you've been playing around with permissions
## consider resetting all files and directories to the default
sudo find ./ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo find ./ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
## give users part of the laravel group the standard RW and RWX
## permissions for the existing files and folders respectively
sudo chown -R :laravel ./storage
sudo chown -R :laravel ./bootstrap/cache
sudo find ./storage -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
sudo find ./bootstrap/cache -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
sudo find ./storage -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
sudo find ./bootstrap/cache -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
And then, this is how we declare that every new file created should have the same permissions as the parent directory :
## give the newly created files/directories the group of the parent directory
## e.g. the laravel group
sudo find ./bootstrap/cache -type d -exec chmod g+s {} \;
sudo find ./storage -type d -exec chmod g+s {} \;
## let newly created files/directories inherit the default owner
## permissions up to maximum permission of rwx e.g. new files get 664,
## folders get 775
sudo setfacl -R -d -m g::rwx ./storage
sudo setfacl -R -d -m g::rwx ./bootstrap/cache
## Reboot so group file permissions refresh (required on Debian and Centos)
sudo shutdown now -r
Now, even if the root user creates the log file, it is readable/writable by the webserver user.
We now always execute this script file after a fresh laravel install.
Maybe it helps ?
