I have an XAMPP server running, and a few Python CGI scripts located in the /opt/lampp/cgi-bin/ directory, and they run fine. However, they cannot write to files.

While browsing my website, I saw an error message that said "Cannot write to file, permission denied" so I'm wondering how I can give XAMPP the privileges it needs to write to files.

I don't know much about Linux shell scripting or file permissions, but I'd like to give XAMPP root privilleges (so it can write to files) and I'm not too concerned about security right now.

I logged in as root when I executed the command "/opt/lampp/lampp start" so I figured that XAMPP would be running as root and have full permissions, but I guess not.

Anyone know what I can do? I'd prefer the easiest solution possible, please. Thanks.

Client side error messages aren't as descriptive or important as server side messages. Best check the log files for errors before proceeding.


The way you phrased your post I'd say this is a most dangerous combination.


If you are not now then you never will.


You may think that "fixing" your problem the way you think it should must be the easiest solution but I assure you it is not. The most efficient, safe and rewarding solution would be to learn to do things the right way. First of all XAMPP, and the developers state it themselves, is for deployment on development machines only. If you mistook XAMPP as a shortcut to get things Live quickly on production hosts please don't. Secondly if you don't (want to) learn to do things the way they should be done you'll have trouble porting the application(s) to production anyway: that's inefficient, error-prone and potentially unsafe. Any Linux distribution has basic Linux users and administrators documentation and IMHO that is what you should start with.