Cannot change permission for /var/www/

Question

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problems with sudo permissions - /var/lib/sudo owned by uid

I recently installed Ubuntu Server and put the GUI on so I can get the hang of Linux. However, I can't seem to gain access to the /var/www/ folder so I can put and edit my html files...

I tried what was on this post: Change folder permissions and ownership and I still can't move files. (Except if I use nautilus)

When I tried what Ikke suggessted, it appeared to have worked (as in no errors thrown in terminal) but when I still can't move files into the folder.

If I use nautilus and look at the permissions for /var/www it lists me as the owner (is just says my username), Create and Delete files for folder access. And --- for file access. If I change file access to Read and Write it just goes back to --- once I hit Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files.

What am I missing?

Did you do chmod or just chown? – Karthik T Dec 06 '12 at 05:18 — Karthik T, Dec 06 '12 at 05:18

Cipher Menial · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-06T05:56:08.247

4

/var/www is owned by root. You will need to do the following:

sudo chown user:user /var/www

Where user is your username.

edited Dec 06 '12 at 05:56

answered Dec 06 '12 at 05:11

Cipher Menial

161

I don't know what I'm looking for here. Basically I see: a listing for . a green square for .. and index.html – ecnepsnai Dec 06 '12 at 05:30
It might not actually be a symbolic link. I have changed the command above. See if it shows /var/www pointing to another directory. – Cipher Menial Dec 06 '12 at 05:37
This is all I see (for /var and /var/www) imgur - picture – ecnepsnai Dec 06 '12 at 05:46
/var/www is owned by root. You will need to do chown. I will edit my answer. – Cipher Menial Dec 06 '12 at 05:53
1

I changed the owner, but it did nothing. I still can't move my files into the folder. – ecnepsnai Dec 06 '12 at 05:58
Can you post the output to ls -al /var again – Cipher Menial Dec 06 '12 at 22:29
I don't know why, but when I booted the machine today I had access to the folder. The problem may have been one of those "did you try turning it on and off again" problems... – ecnepsnai Dec 06 '12 at 23:46

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 06 '12 at 06:00

1

have you tried adding your user to the www-data group?

try this:

sudo usermod -G www-data -a 'your-username-here'

for a little more info you could look here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=919951

answered Dec 06 '12 at 06:00

Gotsanity

51

I saw that post before I came here, and added myself to www-data, but it didn't do anything. – ecnepsnai Dec 06 '12 at 06:17

Cannot change permission for /var/www/

2 Answers2