I want my user to have full access to the local Apache root folder, and I also want the Apache user to have full access to the same folder.

What I did was create a new group called DevGroup and I added my user and www-data there. Also I changed the permissions to 770 to allow full group access.

But now it won't allow me or the Apache user any kind of access to the folder.

Here is what I get with ls:

drwxrwx--- 12 root      DevGroup    4096 Sep 27 17:34 testFolder

Which seems perfect but when I try as a user to access the file I get this:

var/www$ ls testFolder/
ls: cannot open directory testFolder/: Permission denied

Also when I try to access a page in the folder from a browser:

[Thu Sep 27 17:47:16 2012] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] PHP Fatal error: 
 Unknown: Failed opening required '/var/www/testFolder/foo.php' 
(include_path='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in Unknown on line 0

What's the problem and how can I fix it?