Permissions on /var/www/html for uploading web site files via SFTP

March 30, 2015 150.8k views
Linux Basics Ubuntu Linux Commands
howardm
By:
howardm

Hi,

I’ve installed nginx successfully on an Ubuntu instance here at DigitalOcean. The index.html page (in /var/www/html) displays appropriately: “Welcome to nginx on Debian.”

Now I want to upload some files via Cyberduck (sftp) to “duplicate” my current web site currently hosted elsewhere: chestradiologists.org

But I cannot because I don’t have the appropriate permissions. (I created a new user with sudo permissions after I created the Ubuntu VPS.)

Via Cyberduck, I see the following for /var/www/html (all these directories):

rwxr-xr-x (755)

        Read      Write     Execute

Owner Y Y Y
Group Y No Y
Others Y No Y

Owner 0
Group 0

……

I’m the only user that will upload files I create with Octopress on my Mac.

How do I change the ownership/permissions to best accomplish this ?

I have a rudimentary understanding of Unix permissions :-(

So, please explain with some detail if possible.

Thanks!

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3 Answers
howardm April 2, 2015

Update: the following seems to have worked:

  1. Establish a [new directory] at /var/www

  2. Change the directory owner and group:
    sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/[new directory]

  3. allow the group to write to the directory with appropriate permissions:
    sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www

  4. Add myself to the www-data group:
    sudo usermod -a -G www-data [my username]

Logout and login again.

Thanks.

Howard

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  • pappy December 16, 2015

    This worked perfectly for me to allow me to upload through sftp and also update files through wordpress without adding my public key. Thanks so much!

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  • stephgiguere February 5, 2017

    This is also the solution that I used.

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  • ctaque June 28, 2017

    I did that I now i cannot access to the files and directories via the ip adress in a browser. It returns a 404. But I can edit and create files in the directory with the created user

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    • kalabash June 30, 2017

      I would set the sticky bit for the group. See here for more info.

      sudo chmod g+s /var/www/[new directory]

      You may have to reset the group ownership of the new files created. 

      sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/[new directory]
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  • intcreator January 12, 2018

    This appears to have worked for me. Hopefully it’s not insecure. Heh.

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Aprexer March 30, 2015

I believe the owner is www-data? 755 will allow www-data (Webserver) to create and edit, as you’re not the owner you cannot edit it, I’ve simply found doing chown ben:www-data /var/www -R will allow you and the webserver owner permissions which gives you all access to that directory.

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  • howardm March 30, 2015

    Hi,

    Can you please explain the difference between what you’ve recommended and the following approach:

    ....

    Add myself to the www-data:

    sudo usermod -a -G www-data [myusername]

    .......

    Then, recursively grant group write permissions to the /var/www/html directory:

    sudo chmod -R g+w /var/www/html

    ....

    Do you agree with the latter approach ?

    Thanks!

    Howard

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  • Aprexer March 30, 2015

    Yes that should work also.

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lucidunity December 12, 2017

When I upload 2kb file to sftp the file is 0 byte in sftp why?
I can not directly edit file in sftp.
Plz help.
Thx

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