Granting permission to /var/www/html

Stephen Mitchell

2/28/23, 2:01 PM

I've installed WordPress but am struggling to correctly configure permission to the WordPress directory. When attempting to install plugins or update WordPress, I'm getting this message:

To perform the requested action, WordPress needs to access your web server.

This is the permission set (recursively) on the WordPress directory:

steve@binky:~ $ ls -al /var/www/html/
total 20
drwxrws--- 3 steve www-data 4096 Oct 30 12:13 .
drwxr-s--- 3 steve www-data 4096 Oct 26 23:55 ..
-rwxr-x--- 1 steve www-data  766 Oct 27 00:07 index.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 steve www-data   19 Oct 30 12:13 test.php
drwxr-s--- 5 steve www-data 4096 Oct 27 19:14 wordpress

This is the output from ps aux | grep www-data

steve@binky:~ $ ps aux | grep www-data
www-data   842  0.0  3.8 195832 36424 ?        S    11:59   0:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data   843  0.0  3.7 195944 35508 ?        S    11:59   0:01 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data   844  0.0  3.7 195956 35344 ?        S    11:59   0:02 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data   845  0.0  3.9 195964 37556 ?        S    11:59   0:02 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data   846  0.0  3.9 195948 37096 ?        S    11:59   0:02 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  1023  0.0  3.9 195844 37440 ?        S    12:03   0:04 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  1078  0.0  3.7 195944 35548 ?        S    12:07   0:02 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
steve     3329  0.0  0.0   7480   540 pts/0    S+   14:53   0:00 grep --color=auto www-data

If I make www-data the owner of /wordpress I can install updates, but then I lose the ability to access the WordPress directory with my FTP application. This prompted me to add my account to the www-data group:

steve@binky:~ $ grep 'www-data' /etc/group
www-data:x:33:steve

I assume I've missed some crucial step but can't figure it out for myself. Is anyone able to help please?

0 + 0

permissions

apache2

wordpress

matigo

2/28/23, 2:20 AM

If you’re using VSFTP, [this is generally how I resolve the issue](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67696484/setting-up-vsftpd-user-to-have-write-access-to-apache2s-html-directory/67697945#67697945).

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Granting permission to /var/www/html

TH: การให้สิทธิ์แก่ /var/www/html

RO: Acordarea permisiunii pentru /var/www/html

RU: Предоставление разрешения на /var/www/html

VI: Cấp quyền cho /var/www/html

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