Correct file permissions for WordPress

For Development

chown www-data:www-data  -R * # Let Apache be owner
find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;  # Change directory permissions rwxr-xr-x
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;  # Change file permissions rw-r--r--
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data www/html/folder/

In production, I wouldn’t give access to users to modify the filesystem, I’ll only allow them to upload resources and give access to some plugins specific folders to do backups, etc. But managing projects under Git and using deploy keys on the server, it isn’t good update plugins on staging nor production. I leave here the production file setup:

# Set uploads folder user and group to www-data
chown www-data:www-data -R wp-content/uploads/

www-data:www-data = apache or nginx user and group

Staging will share the same production permissions as it should be a clone of it.

Finally, development environment will have access to update plugins, translations, everything…

# Set uploads folder user and group to www-data
chown www-data:www-data -R wp-content/

# Set uploads folder user and group to www-data
chown your-user:root-group -R wp-content/themes

# Set uploads folder user and group to www-data
chown your-user:root-group -R wp-content/plugins/your-plugin

www-data:www-data = apache or nginx user and group your-user:root-group = your current user and the root group

These permissions will give you access to develop under themes and your-plugin folder without asking permission. The rest of the content will be owned by the Apache or Nginx user to allow WP to manage the filesystem.

Before creating a git repo first run these commands:

# Set all directories permissions to 755
find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

# Set all files permissions to 644
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;