Title: WordPress Server Permissions Last modified: August 21, 2016 --- # WordPress Server Permissions * [Jason Adams](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason_the_adams/) * (@jason_the_adams) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/) * Greetings! * I’ve been fighting this for a couple months now, so it’d be really awesome if someone could help me figure out. * What I’m trying to accomplish is to have the owner of a directory and its contents be something other than the server user (in this case www-data), yet still allow the server to read/write to said directory. Here’s what I’ve tried: 1. Add the user to the www-data group 2. Set all files/folders chown to user:www-data 3. Set all directories to 775 permission 4. Set all files to 664 permission * This almost works. For some crazy reason though I still cannot install/update plugins or the wordpress core — any moment wherein www-data would need to create a directory and create/modify/delete files. If, however, I chown www-data -R the entire directory, it works. This absolutely baffles me! * I’m also gone the ACL route: 1. Install acl, add to fstab, remount 2. Setfacl -Rdm g:www-data:rwx wordpress/ 3. Find wordpress/ -type f -exec setfacl -m g:www-data:rw {} \; * I even tried adding an acl for www-data as a user as well as a group. No difference. * I absolutely must be missing some simple permissions concept here. I actually got it to work on one site, but I have absolutely no idea why it worked on that one and not 4 others. Someone please shed some light on this! It’s driving me bonkers! Hahah! * Thank you! * P.S. The same problem occurs on either apache or nginx, so I’m sure it’s a permissions issue. Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total) * [Ractors](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ractors/) * (@ractors) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824422) * what is your php handler ? * Thread Starter [Jason Adams](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason_the_adams/) * (@jason_the_adams) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824505) * I believe FastCGI, is there a way for me to tell? I’m having trouble being sure. * [Ractors](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ractors/) * (@ractors) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824553) * change folder permission to 777 and file permission to 666 * Thread Starter [Jason Adams](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason_the_adams/) * (@jason_the_adams) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824565) * Er.. umm.. can you please elaborate more on your answer? That’s normally really bad advise. I would hope WordPress wouldn’t require fully open permissions like that. * If I had to do that, I’d rather change the owner to www-data. * [Ovidiu](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ovidiu/) * (@ovidiu) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824566) * You seem to contradict yourself or am I reading this wrong? * > What I’m trying to accomplish is to have the owner of a directory and its contents > be something other than the server user (in this case www-data), yet still > allow the server to read/write to said directory. Here’s what I’ve tried: > Add the user to the www-data group > Set all files/folders chown to user:www- > data * You want i.e. user1 to own the web directory why then do you: * > Set all files/folders chown to user:www-data * If I get your right, you’d need to create a group that owns the web folder and add the user1 and www-data to that group, then make that group the owner of the web folder. * Thread Starter [Jason Adams](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason_the_adams/) * (@jason_the_adams) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824567) * I’ll admit, adding the user to the www-data group is redundant in the end, but I don’t think there’s a contradiction going on, but I think I get what you’re saying. * As I understood it, I’m providing the user access to the files by assigning them as the owner to the file. They inherit the permissions of the first octet. * The http server, on the other hand, has the user/group www-data, and it’s given access by assigning www-data as the group to the file. These permissions are defined in the middle octet. * Therefore if I assign the owner as user:www-data and provide file/folder permissions as 664/775, respectively, that should provide ample access to both. In fact, it should be the same. * Something is clearly wrong in my thinking, or something, though. What you’re saying is that I’d need a third user/group and add both the initial user and www-data user to that group? That just doesn’t sound right to me. * [Ovidiu](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ovidiu/) * (@ovidiu) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824568) * LOL, I’M getting as confused as you. Let me explain what I use and what I understand from your request, maybe it helps. * on my machine the Control Panel I use, creates a user/group for each client. their web folder is owned by this user/group: i.e. webx:clientx my web server runs as www-data so obviously www-data needs to be part of the clientx group to be able to write to the web folder. * Does that make more sense now to you? * ***just re-read your test*** * > As I understood it, I’m providing the user access to the files by assigning > them as the owner to the file. They inherit the permissions of the first octet. > The http server, on the other hand, has the user/group www-data, and it’s given > access by assigning www-data as the group to the file. These permissions are > defined in the middle octet. > Therefore if I assign the owner as user:www-data and provide file/folder permissions > as 664/775, respectively, that should provide ample access to both. In fact, > it should be the same. * Sounds al sound to me 🙂 * Have you tried this: * chown -R user:www-data web/ chmod -R 775 web/ * I know its bit more perms as you initially wanted but just give it a try and then try and maybe adjust to what you want? * [Ractors](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ractors/) * (@ractors) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824569) * Don’t you need to change group of directory to www-data * Thread Starter [Jason Adams](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason_the_adams/) * (@jason_the_adams) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824570) * Hahah! Thanks for clearing that up for me, Ovidu. 🙂 * > chown -R user:www-data web/ > chmod -R 775 web/ * Yup, I’ve tried exactly that. * But it sounds like you’re doing the inverse of what I’m doing. You’re assigning www-data to the clientx group, and leaving the user/group for their files as clientx:clientx. While this makes sense, it doesn’t sound as secure. That would mean, assuming you’re granting access to your user’s home directory and they have a www or public_html folder therein, that apache/nginx actually has access to _every_ folder/file within their home directory, rather than just their www/ public_html directory. * Still, I wonder if there is something different to the way you’re doing it. Hmm.. 🙂 * [Ovidiu](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ovidiu/) * (@ovidiu) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824571) * [@jason](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason/): no idea why you’re having probs if you did just that. Btw. I only have these perms on the www or web or public_html folder … * Thread Starter [Jason Adams](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason_the_adams/) * (@jason_the_adams) * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824572) * > no idea why you’re having probs if you did just that. * Me either. 🙁 * But, like I said, if I change the user to www-data (chown www-data web/ -R), all the problems go away. There has to be one stupid thing I’m not doing! Argh! Hahah! Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total) The topic ‘WordPress Server Permissions’ is closed to new replies. ## Tags * [acl](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/acl/) * [apache](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/apache/) * [nginx](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/nginx/) * [permissions](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/permissions/) * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 11 replies * 3 participants * Last reply from: [Jason Adams](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jason_the_adams/) * Last activity: [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-server-permissions/#post-4824572) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics