title: A general linux file permissions question: Apache and WordPress
body: <p>I moved from a shared hosting to a VPS a few weeks ago and I'm having these annoying permission issues with WordPress. You know you can download and upgrade plugins (and wordpress itself) from the admin panel, but since I moved it started asking me my FTP credentials, which is kinda slow when I have to update ~20 plugins.</p>
  
  <p>I think this should be some kind of rights issue. I looked that the shared hosting wordpress files, they all belong to the username and group kovshenin (kovshenin:kovshenin) and the files are -rw-r--r-- and the directories are drwx-r-xr-x.</p>
  
  <p>On my VPS apache runs under apache:apache and my files are kovshenin:kovshenin. What should I do to make them readable and writable by both kovshenin and apache?</p>
  
  <p>Also, I changed the permissions to 0777 for all files and folders of my wordpress installation, that allowed me to install and delete plugins without FTP, but when I pushed to automatic upgrade to WordPress 2.8.1 it still asked me for my FTP account. Is that a wp issue or did I miss something?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong>: I managed to run <code>id</code> and <code>id www-data</code> on the MediaTemple shared hosting. User kovshenin is in group kovshenin, and www-data is in group www-data. No more groups. What's the trick?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Another update</strong> Okay, I added the <code>apache</code> user to the <code>kovshenin</code> group, my wordpress files are <code>kovshenin:kovshenin</code> with <code>rw-rw-r--</code> permissions and <code>drwxrwxr-x</code> permissions on directories, but something is still wrong. The user <code>apache</code> can access the files and folders, I can use the online Themes and Plugins editor in the wordpress admin panel, I'm able to make changes to the .htaccess file from within wordpress, but plugin/theme installation still asks me for FTP credentials!</p>
  
  <p>Any ideas? Thanks.</p>