/var/www alter default directory and file permissions

Question

I've set up my apache2 server along with vsftpd. A shortcut to the /var/www folder is in /home/pi and I've taken ownership of the folder using:

`sudo chown -R pi /var/www'

When files are uploaded via FTP they are set to permissions: 600

But when viewing this files via the web browser a 403 Forbidden is shown. I can change the file permissions manually but images are uploaded from CCTV cameras 24/7. How can I change this so that the permissions are set automatically?

Answer 1

Typically, publicly accessible services (such as nginx/apache or sftp) run as the www-data user. When you changed the owner to pi, you most likely removed permissions for the sftp user.

You should return the permissions to that which they were (ls -lsa /srv/www will give you the actual user/group, as I am making an assumption here):

• sudo chown www-data:www-data -R /srv/www
• sudo chmod g+rw -R /srv/www
• sudo chmod g+s -R /srv/www
• sudo usermod -a -G www-data pi

Now, the files should be accessible to sftp/web and pi belongs to the www-data group, giving it permission to edit the files.

Be sure you're writing in umask 002 of 007.