I am attempting to copy a file into a directory where my user account is not the directory owner but belongs to a group that is the directory group owner. These are the steps I have taken:

###### Create a group and add me to that group

```
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo groupadd test-group
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo usermod -a -G test-group stephen
stephen@pi:~ $ grep 'test-group' /etc/group
test-group:x:1002:stephen

```

###### Create a file and list permission

```
stephen@pi:~ $ touch example.txt
stephen@pi:~ $ ls -l example.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 stephen stephen 0 Feb  9 10:46 example.txt

```

###### Create a directory, modify the group owner to the new group and alter permission to the directory to grant write permission to the group

```
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo mkdir /var/www/testdir
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo chown :test-group /var/www/testdir/
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo chmod 664 /var/www/testdir/
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo ls -l /var/www
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root       4096 Oct 31 12:17 html
drw-rw-r-- 2 root    test-group 4096 Feb  9 10:48 testdir

```

###### Copy the newly created file into this directory

```
stephen@pi:~ $ cp example.txt /var/www/testdir/straight-copy.txt
cp: failed to access '/var/www/testdir/straight-copy.txt': Permission denied

```

To me, this should have been successful; I'm a member of the group that has ownership of this directory, and the group permission is set to rw. Ultimately, I want any files that are copied into this directory to inherit the permission of the parent directory (/var/www/testdir).

I can copy with `sudo`, but this does not inherit the owner or permission from the parent directory, nor does it retain the original ownership (probably as I'm elevated to root to copy):

###### Copy with `sudo` and list ownership/permission of file

```
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo cp example.txt /var/www/testdir/straight-copy.txt
stephen@pi:~ $ sudo ls -l /var/www/testdir/
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb  9 11:06 straight-copy.txt

```

Please is someone able to explain to me what is happening?