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I am quite new to ubuntu and I have been trying to install BuilderEngine, a content management system, to my ubuntu server 12.04 lts. I have figured some things out but I am struggling with permission for files and folders. I know I have to change the permission for folders and files in /var/www/ to be able to read and write files. But I am not sure what to do.

All I know is never use chmod -R 777 /var/www/ because that can read/write/excute files.

Was thinking of trying sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/ but not sure.

Pilot6
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user244666
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2 Answers2

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Make sure the group is www-data on '/var/www'

sudo chgrp www-data /var/www

Make '/var/www' writable for the group

sudo chmod 775 /var/www

Set the GID for www-data for all sub-folders

sudo chmod g+s /var/www

Your directory should look like this on an ls -l output.

drwxrwsr-x

Last, add your username to the www-data group (secondary group)

sudo usermod -a -G www-data [YOURUSERNAME]
Kai
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  • Does this method work with ubuntu server 12.04 LTS because I only found out that it is easier to install the Builderengine cms on 12.04 version. Thanks for the quick reply – user244666 Feb 05 '14 at 01:12
  • Yes, this should work with ubuntu server 12.04. – Kai Feb 05 '14 at 01:27
  • Was able to to get into 192.168.0.xx/admin/install/index but sadly my last check box for the installation progess was unchecked it was : website folder is not writable – user244666 Feb 05 '14 at 02:10
  • doesn't matter fixed it – user244666 Feb 05 '14 at 02:19
  • Doesn't work for me. The last terminal command you reference returns an error: useradd: user '[myusername]' already exists, and I still can't write to /var/www/ to start working on websites – khaverim Sep 06 '14 at 00:56
  • The right final command is - sudo usermod -a -G GROUP USER where GROUP is the desired existing group and USER is the desired existing user – Yehonatan Tsirolnik Dec 02 '14 at 17:03
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    Also, if you already have files inside /var/www then the change /var/www AT THE CMD to /var/www/* -R so for example sudo chgrp www-data /var/www/* -R – Yehonatan Tsirolnik Dec 02 '14 at 17:10
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My Suggestion for the permission you can use below command to find and set p:

find /var/www/html/ -type d -perm 777 |xargs chmod 0755 --
find /var/www/html/ -type f -perm 777 |xargs chmod 0644 --

OR

For Directories: 

 find /path/to/your/wordpress/install/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

For Files: 

find /path/to/your/wordpress/install/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
Ramesh Chand
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