Apache file permission

Posted under » Ubuntu » Apache » LAMP Security on 25 June 2013

If you get a file permission error while using Apache, it is most probably because www-data is not able to access the file. The file owner is probably you, "webmasta" for example but "www-data" need to access to it too. If redhat, instead of www-data, it is apache. You can see determine by "cat /etc/group".

For security, www-data need only to access the file without the need to write or execute. So this is how it is done with much reference to this.

As root

usermod -G www-data -a 'webmasta'
chown webmasta /var/www -R
chgrp www-data /var/www -R

As user webmasta, only owner can write.

chmod 754 /var/www -R

If you have more than one webmaster, then you have to loosen this a bit like 774 for example.

Please take note that you will sometimes create a folder on the www root folder under webmasta and it will cause a "no priviledge" error. You have to make sure www-data is able to read it by doing this again.

chgrp www-data /var/www -R