psql denies access to file when using COPY FROM

drwxr--r-- 6 peter peter 4096 2011-04-14 14:03 phm

postgres@dexter:/home/peter/PyPacks$ cd phm

bash: cd: phm: Permission denied

Directories need to be executable to be able to cd into them (or use files within them). All the sub-directory from / to the /home/peter/PyPacks/phm need to be executable by the user you want to use for this to work.

Try at least chmod 711 phm (which should give you rwx--x--x), or perhaps chmod 755 phm (rwxr-xr-x). r for directories is the ability to list their content, not to go into them (or use files/directories within them).

Assuming the psql command-line tool, you may use \copy instead of copy.

\copy opens the file and feeds the contents to the server, whereas copy tells the server the open the file itself and read it, which may be problematic permission-wise, or even impossible if client and server run on different machines with no file sharing in-between.

Under the hood, \copy is implemented as COPY FROM stdin and accepts the same options than the server-side COPY.

from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19463074/postgres-error-could-not-open-file-for-reading-permission-denied