ModSecurity on Plesk server reports errors: collection_store: Failed to access DBM file “/var/cache/modsecurity/”: No such file or directory

Symptoms

• ModSecurity on Plesk server reports the following errors:

  In /var/log/httpd/error_log:

  ModSecurity: collections_remove_stale: Failed to access DBM file "/var/cache/modsecurity/ip": No such file or directory

  ---

  In /var/log/modsec_audit.log:

  ModSecurity: collections_remove_stale: Failed to access DBM file "/var/cache/modsecurity/ip": No such file or directory

  ModSecurity: collection_store: Failed to access DBM file "/var/cache/modsecurity/default_SESSION": Permission denied

• Cannot send emails using PHPMailer; errors like following are reported in Domains > example.com > Logs:

  ModSecurity: collection_store: Failed to access DBM file "/var/cache/modsecurity/default_SESSION": No such file or directory

Cause

The directory /var/cache/modsecurity/ does not exist on the server or has incorrect permissions.

Resolution

1. Connect to the server via SSH.

2. If the directory /var/log/modsecurity/ does not exist, create it:

   # mkdir /var/cache/modsecurity

3. Set permissions 755 and apache:apache ownership on it:

   # chmod 755 /var/cache/modsecurity/

   # chown apache:apache /var/cache/modsecurity/