easyengine: Unable to access app directory by non-root user

Non-root users are unable to access app/ directory in site due to ownership/permission issues. See -

https://community.easyengine.io/t/www-data-user-does-not-access-wp-app-folder/11578 https://community.easyengine.io/t/sftp-for-eev4-not-able-to-access-wordpress-installation-directory/11560

This needs to be fixed by setting correct file permissions.

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created 6 years ago
Reactions: 6
Comments: 19 (1 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Here are the steps to setup SFTP as a workaround for now.

Generate encrypted password.

echo -n "your-password" | docker run -i --rm atmoz/makepasswd --crypt-md5 --clearfrom=- | sed 's/\$/$$/g'

Create the SSH host key

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ssh_host_ed25519_key < /dev/null
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ssh_host_rsa_key < /dev/null

Create the following docker-compose.yml.

sftp:
    image: atmoz/sftp
    restart: on-failure
    volumes:
        - /path/to/target/directory/:/home/<user>/upload
        - /path/to/sftp-keys/ssh_host_ed25519_key:/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key
        - /path/to/sftp-keys/ssh_host_rsa_key:/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
    ports:
        - "2222:22"
    command: '<user>:<encrypted_password_from_step_1>:e:<user_id_of_user_on_host>'

Start the container.

docker-compose up -d

We’ll be adding it to the EasyEngine blog soon.

mbtamuli on Feb 4, 2019

Why was this put on the backlog? This seems to be affecting a lot of people, myself included. Can you explain the steps required to manually fix this until the bug is fixed?

Code-Bear on Jan 17, 2019

The issue is related to the Docker folder itself.

The best way to do it is to add your user to www-data group, and change docker folder under /var/lib permission recursively to 775. Then change the permission on your data folder to force it to keep the group when new files are added by using find /opt/easyengine/sites/yoursite/app -type d | xargs chmod g+s.

And ensure that from the app folder permissions are set to www-data:www-data (or any group you use)

diogogomesleal on Nov 28, 2019

How is this issue still unresolved?! Does anyone have a fix for this? I see @mbtamuli comment about setting up a docker container but I am using a VPS on digital ocean and it comes pre-setup with an SSH and I am unable to get this option to work. I am not sure if it is because of the default setup of the VPS but I have tried following those steps serval times without success and when I set up my sftp access the normal way through the existing setup I am unable to access the app folder with my www-data user.

Code-Bear on Jul 10, 2019

Any other solution for it ?

motyl1338 on Jun 27, 2019

Can someone clarify if this is the “blog” you were referring to? I’ve attempted this several times and it fails for me: https://easyengine.io/handbook/configure-sftp-on-ee4-server

Others are reporting the same in the forum

codente on Mar 6, 2019