Title: Why does WordPress require FTP access to install plugins?
Last modified: August 11, 2017

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# Why does WordPress require FTP access to install plugins?

 *  [chrispytoes](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrispytoes/)
 * (@chrispytoes)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-does-wordpress-require-ftp-access-to-install-plugins/)
 * I have used WordPress for years, I’ve made many sites with it and I’ve never 
   had this happen. When I try to install a plugin I get a message saying to enter
   my FTP login info. I entered it and it works fine but my question is why do I
   need this? In all my years of working with WordPress I have never been asked 
   to enter my FTP login info like this.
 * Is it maybe that my webserver doesn’t have the correct permissions so it’s falling
   back to FTP? I’m on an Ubuntu VPS with nginx.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/)
 * (@sterndata)
 * Volunteer Forum Moderator
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-does-wordpress-require-ftp-access-to-install-plugins/#post-9399911)
 * The permissions are incorrect or ownership of the files and directories does 
   not match the user under which PHP is running.
 *  Thread Starter [chrispytoes](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrispytoes/)
 * (@chrispytoes)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-does-wordpress-require-ftp-access-to-install-plugins/#post-9399948)
 * My www directory is owned by my nginx user and group: www-data, with 755 permissions
   on everything in this directory. Inside there I have a directory called ‘customer-
   sites’ which contains multiple webroots for different sites, and it is recursively
   owned by my FTP user. I’m not sure which user PHP is running on, is there a way
   to check and see? Also if I change the owner to the PHP user I still need my ‘
   customer-sites’ folder read/write-able from my FTP user.
 *  Moderator [Steven Stern (sterndata)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sterndata/)
 * (@sterndata)
 * Volunteer Forum Moderator
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-does-wordpress-require-ftp-access-to-install-plugins/#post-9399960)
 * I assume you’re using php-fpm, so check the owner under which the pool that handles
   this site runs; the files should be owned by that user. You can make the FTP 
   user a member of the group that owns the files.
 * See [http://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress#Automatic_Update](http://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress#Automatic_Update)
   and [http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#WordPress_Upgrade_Constants](http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#WordPress_Upgrade_Constants)
   as well as [http://v007.me/4](http://v007.me/4) for forcing direct file system
   writes
 *  Thread Starter [chrispytoes](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrispytoes/)
 * (@chrispytoes)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-does-wordpress-require-ftp-access-to-install-plugins/#post-9400036)
 * Thank you! I think I got it, I just set the owner of my ‘customer-sites’ directory
   to my ftp user with the group www-data.
    -  This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by [chrispytoes](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrispytoes/).
    -  This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by [chrispytoes](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrispytoes/).
    -  This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by [chrispytoes](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrispytoes/).

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Why does WordPress require FTP access to install plugins?’ is closed 
to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [chrispytoes](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrispytoes/)
 * Last activity: [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-does-wordpress-require-ftp-access-to-install-plugins/#post-9400036)
 * Status: not resolved

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