Question

I just learned to install Apache 2 on my ubuntu linux localhost for the first time. I’m making it work with PHP5.

I noticed that anytime I want to write to a file or directory, I have to chmod 777 the destination.

But from my experience working on 3rd party hosting solutions, I am generally allowed to write to files and dirs that have 755 permissions.

What can I do on my localhost so that I can write to files and dirs with 755 permissions? If the answer to this is very long, can someone send me a link to a step by step guide to do this?

Answer 1

You probably can’t achieve this because the owner of the file is different than the user trying to perform an action on the file.

the permissions are:

owner-group-everyone

rwx-rwx-rwx

i.e.  111 = 7 which allows read/write and execute.  
101 = 5 which is just read and execute

you can’t write to the file because your logged in user isn’t part of the owner/group that has access to the file.

the final 7 (i.e. rwx-rwx-111(7)) means that globally, everyone has read/write access to that file.

how to fix this
In Linux, you can use the chown or chgrp command to achieve your desired results.