Bingo! Permissions problems, indeed!

Easy fix, my friend:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www

Thanks, ethan.

As far as I know, apache should be running as 'www-data'. Try allowing www-data to write to /var/www/sitename.com/:

sudo chgrp -R www-data /var/www/sitename.com

sudo chmod -R g+w /var/www/sitename.com

find /var/www/sitename.com -type d -exec chmod g+s {} \;

The first command changes the group owernship of every file in /var/www/sitename.com to be owned by the group 'www-data'. The second command allows members of the file's group to write to the file (+w). The third command searches for directories in /var/www/sitename.com and sets setgid so that new subdirectories/subfiles are also owned by the group 'www-data'.

Please let me know if that helps.

Thanks.

When you installed WordPress, did you follow a guide? If so, which one?

If not, give us a few more details to be able to better assist, e.g. OS and webserver?

I recommend not using FTP but allowing Wordpress to write the files directly instead.

What OS are you running and did you follow an article on installing Wordpress?

I'll see if I can give you a good idea of what I did. I installed LAMP on Ubuntu 12.04.

I eventually found out I could put multiple sites on one droplet, so that was the first step. This is the guide I followed for the Wordpress installs, at least in terms of /sites-available/ and /sites-enabled/ :
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-set-up-multiple-wordpress-sites-on-a-single-ubuntu-vps

Now, it should be mentioned that the sites I was installing were migrated from other hosts, and as I was installing them, I wasn't sure how to set up the DNS stuff with DO.
I didn't install Wordpress through the command line, but after I got the SSH user set up, I used FTP to upload all the my files to the directories I wanted them to go into (/var/www/sitename.com/), and Sequel Pro to install their databases. Then I used this script (http://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/) to make sure that all the instances of the old domain in the database had been updated with serialized instances of the new domain.

So far so good, as everything is working without a hitch. The only thing that isn't is the Wordpress updater. Kamal, I'm with you - I really don't want to FTP in and upload new files myself all the time. I'd rather let Wordpress write the files itself - but for whatever reason, when I ask it to, that's when it says, "To perform the requested action, WordPress needs to access your web server. Please enter your FTP credentials to proceed."

Is there any more information you need?

Kamal,

Thanks for your reply. I did all those things, and I am still seeing the when I try to update plugins or a theme from within Wordpress:

http://imgur.com/prhBooY

...I've tried the server's IP, the server's name, my domain name, localhost...

None of them seem to work. I'm pretty stumped.

This definitely sounds like a permissions problem. Can you paste onto Pastie the output of ls -la /var/www; and provide us w/the link?

http://pastebin.com/tKyWZq2w

Thanks for the help guys, like I said - I am so stumped.

Try following this article: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/update-wordpress-without-ftp/ (you just have to tell Wordpress to write directly and not use FTP)

Does that fix it?

@ethan

This blog post may help you out :)

https://www.serverstack.com/blog/2013/02/11/automatic-wordpress-updates-using-ftpftps-or-ssh/

Permissions solved it! NICE! OK - well, if I add other sites to this server, how do I prevent this problem in the future?

"... I used FTP to upload all the my files to the directories I wanted them to go into ..."

Don't ever do that, again (believe me; many of us have learned that we should not use FTP -- which is hella insecure -- the hard way). SFTP is the way to go. I'd recommend FileZilla with SSH keys.

Ah, I apologize - I have been using SFTP! I connected via root with my server's password over SFTP on Cyberduck. Is that going to be ok?

...and is that what was creating the permissions problem? should I run that sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www script whenever uploading a new site?

Sorry to spam this now - not my intent - but I am not sure how to create directories that are automatically owned by www-data. I think if that was solved, I would be golden.

"...how to create directories that are automatically owned by www-data."

I've never really thought this through, but I wonder if doing so (assuming it's possible) would present some security risks? Given that not only WordPress, but your webserver also operates under the www-data user account -- what if your sites were hit by a DDoS attack?

You wouldn't want the hijacker to be able to start creating additional directories on your server.

Hey Pablo,

If it is a security risk, then would this be the best method for fixing the issue? I'm also facing the same issue myself and I've been searching for countless hours for the most reasonable, yet, most secure way of fixing this issue.

See https://www.serverstack.com/blog/2013/02/11/automatic-wordpress-updates-using-ftpftps-or-ssh/ for a more secure method on allowing Wordpress's auto-update functionality to work properly.

I am having this same issue but I am wondering if I can use the same solution with my set up.

I have LEMP stack and installed wordpress via this tutorial,
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-wordpress-on-ubuntu-12-04

I also ran, ls -la /var/www as Pablo suggested before and this is what I got,
http://pastie.org/9144678#1

Should I also run, sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www ?