Question
Apache permissions with WordPress on CentOS 7
- Posted on December 29, 2015
- WordPressApache
Asked by Geoff Sowrey
I’ve set up dozens of CentOS servers before, so this one is baffling me to say the least…
I’ve got a “nothing fancy” LAMP stack running on a CentOS 7 droplet. I’ve got a VirtualDirectory configuration running a WordPress site that I’ve run on other hosts for many years, and it’s never given me a problem before. I’ve transferred it here, and have tried to install a plugin through the UI.
I get the “FTP login” screen (which I’ve never seen before). I’ve tried using chmod -R g+w on the wp-content folder (which I’ve never had to do before), I’ve set define(‘FS_METHOD’, ‘direct’); as well. I’ve tried setting the apache user SSH keys. None of them solve my problem.
I thus must assume that I’ve got an Apache and/or a UNIX user config issue. But I can’t seem to find it.
Any pointers and/or hints would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers, Geoff
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Hi Geoff,
The permissions you need will depend on which user Apache is running as. I found this article from Smashing Magazine, a while back, which does a great job at explaining exactly which permissions WordPress needs in order to run properly. I recommend it a lot in Support tickets, as well as to my friends who are seeing that dreaded FTP upload screen. Hopefully it helps you out!
The main takeaway from it is, on a VPS like your Droplet:
www-data (or whichever group the webserver is running as) should have group permissions for all of the WordPress files.
All files should be 664 All directories should be 775 wp-config.php should be set to 660, so “other” users cannot see sensitive information in that file.
Of course, this is only for a private environment like your Droplet. If you’re using the droplet to host multiple users, you’ll need a slightly different setup (also detailed in the article I linked above).
I hope that helps. Please let me know if you need any further help with this. :)
Best, Eris Platform Support Specialist