I am using lucene to store an index of some data. The following code checks for the existance of a directory in /home/username and if its not found, builds the index from scratch creating the directories etc.

public static final String INDEX_PATH = "/home/username/appname/lucene/index";
private void buildCompleteIndex(int organizationId) {
        synchronized(mutex) {
        File path = new File(INDEX_PATH + "/" + String.valueOf(organizationId));
        if(!path.exists()) {            
            try {
                Utils.deleteDirectory(path);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                throw new LuceneIndexException("Error rebuilding index directory.", e);
            }
            path.mkdirs();
        }

        List contactList = contactDAO.findAll(organizationId, true);
        if(contactList != null) {
            for(Contact contact : contactList) {
                add(contact);
            }
        }
    }
}

//Getters
private IndexReader getIndexReader(boolean readOnly, int organizationId) {
    try {
        if(directory == null) {
            File path = getFile(organizationId);
            directory = FSDirectory.open(path);
            if(!IndexReader.indexExists(directory)) {
                buildCompleteIndex(organizationId);
            }
        }
        return IndexReader.open(directory, readOnly);
    } catch (CorruptIndexException e) {
        buildCompleteIndex(organizationId);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        buildCompleteIndex(organizationId);
    }
    return null;
}

This all works great in development when i'm deploying from a virtual tomcat instance inside of eclipse, but fails on the production server.

Why would I be able to write to the directory in dev mode, but not when the app is deployed on the server? Do I not have permission to create directories? I'm using Ubuntu Server 12.10 and Tomcat7.

How can I get this creating the proper folders and files on the server?

Is there a specific folder I am supposed to allow my applications to write to on the server? It always worked with the home/user folder on my dev box, but maybe thats different on the server because the user isn't actually logged in when the application is running?

UPDATE: I checked the permissions of the folder which are currently set to 700. Could that be the problem? Is it safe to set this folder to 666 or 777 on a production server? Is this folder writable even if the username of /home/username is not logged in? I know that 700 means owner has full access, but does that include the tomcat application?

UPDATE: I attempted to change the /home/username's permissions to 755 and the same issue persisted.

The stacktrace showing the error generated when trying to create the folder.

java.io.IOException: Cannot create directory: /home/ryandlf/thinkbooked.com/lucene/contacts/1
    at org.apache.lucene.store.NativeFSLock.obtain(NativeFSLockFactory.java:171)
    at org.apache.lucene.store.Lock.obtain(Lock.java:72)
    at org.apache.lucene.index.IndexWriter.(IndexWriter.java:1108)
    at com.thinkbooked.search.LuceneContactSearchEngine.getIndexWriter(LuceneContactSearchEngine.java:321)
    at com.thinkbooked.search.LuceneContactSearchEngine.add(LuceneContactSearchEngine.java:68)
    at com.thinkbooked.search.LuceneContactSearchEngine.buildCompleteIndex(LuceneContactSearchEngine.java:285)
    at com.thinkbooked.search.LuceneContactSearchEngine.getIndexReader(LuceneContactSearchEngine.java:303)
    at com.thinkbooked.search.LuceneContactSearchEngine.find(LuceneContactSearchEngine.java:150)
    at com.thinkbooked.search.LuceneContactSearchEngine.find(LuceneContactSearchEngine.java:145)
    at com.thinkbooked.handlers.ClientListSearchHandler.init(ClientListSearchHandler.java:49)
    at com.thinkbooked.event.EventListener.doPost(EventListener.java:59)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:641)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:305)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:222)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:123)
    at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:472)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:168)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:99)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:929)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118)
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:407)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1002)
    at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:585)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:312)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722)