I believe that I have searched long and hard and I haven’t found an answer to my issue I’m experiencing.
I have Virtualmin and Webmin installed on a VPS running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I have a Wordpress site running on Virtualmin successfully, but there appear to be some permission issues.
I cannot update any plugins, I am presented with a page requesting that I input FTP details.
I am also unable to add any items to any menus.
I have tried to set the user and group to the user defined in the virtual server in Virtualmin in the /var/www folder.
I have also tried to set the user and group to, www-data:www-data and root:root. With www-data:www-data set I am able to update plugins.
I am not sure where the issue may be, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time now trying to figure it out.
Please could you let me know what the problem may be?
Please let me know if you require anything to help.
I’d appreciate any assistance.
WP do not store any FTP details so you should not see that message. Long time ago i had similar problem with Centos 6 and if my life depends on it i cant remember exact problem but here is few tips what could help you:
Check if owner and group of files inside public_html is set to virtual server admin. This could happen if you upload files and folders as root and then virtual server admin doesnt have rights to delete or change. Only root user dont have this limitations everyone else is locked to their files and folders.
Check if admin for virtual server have FTP rights (it should have by default)
Check if virtual server allows FTP. Do not mistake this for “ProFTPd virtual FTP” what can be found in Vmin - System Settings - Features and Plugins. You need this only for anonymous FTP and it should be disabled if not needed.
This is what comes in my mind right now. Follow my advice in same order as i posted.
I have tried to set the user and group to the user defined in the virtual server in Virtualmin in the /var/www folder.
In Centos Virtualmin is storing all virtual servers in “/home/virtual-server-name/”. You sure you dont have “home” directory with virtual servers inside?
The virtual server has FTP enabled. Am I correct if I assume IP-based virtual FTP should be enabled?
You don’t actually need that feature… that’s a rarely needed feature whose main purpose seems to be to cause confusion. I’ve personally never used it
Your directories in /home shouldn’t be symlinks to /var… if they are, that could cause a problem.
Maybe we should back up a bit though –
Did you create a Virtual Server for this account? Your WordPress installation should be part of a Virtual Server located in /home/VIRTUAL_SERVER_OWNER/public_html.
If so, what PHP Execution Mode is that domain using? You can determine that in Server Configuration -> Website Options.
There’s some permissions tricks that need to be done in order for mod_php to work, since that runs as the Apache user and not the Virtual Server owner.
The default PHP Execution Mode is FCGID, which is fast and runs as the Virtual Server owner, which would prevent permission issues… would it be possible to use that mode?
I have set the PHP Execution Method to CGI ( I didn’t have FCGID as an option) and now whenever I browse to the site I am presented with a download dialogue for a file called “download”
Please see the screenshot below of my Website Options page: