I just setup a new server with PHP 5 and ran into a problem with 
includes. Everytime I call something like

require_once './includes/test.inc'

I get a permissions message like this:

Warning: require_once(./includes/test.inc) [function.require-once]: 
failed to open stream: Permission denied in /var/www/html/test2.php on 
line 3

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening 
required './includes/test.inc' (include_path='.:/php/includes:/var/www/
html/includes') in /var/www/html/test2.php on line 3

I verified that apache has exectuble permissions all the way through /
var/www/html. As you can see my include path is correct (unless 
someone sees something I don't). This is getting really frustrating as 
I have spent several hour trying to debug this, any assistance would 
be greatly appreciated.

I was able to run the script fine from the command line as well.