Hi,

I am new to Ubuntu/Apache. Recently I created a web-site, where I placed the files in the directory /var/www/Mysite. I set the owner of all files under /var/www/Mysite as www-data since Apache seemed to use this as the default user. The site is working properly.

However, now I want to update the site periodically by uploading files here from a Windows machine using some sftp client like Filezilla. However, if I connect as an ordinary user, I am not allowed to update the files in /var/www/Mysite, due to permission problem, which is expected. But I cannot also login as www-data, as I do not know its password. I reckon this should be a common enough problem. What is the standard solution?

Should I set a new password to www-data and use that to login through Filezilla? Will Apache work properly then?

Thanks in advance,

It will, however this is not the standard way,
Just set the files ownership to your real user and give to others the permission to read.

Actually, I wouldn't change the ownerships; just add yourself to www-data group

Hello Celyr,
I tried out your suggestion of changing the ownership to a real user (say "newbie") and it worked fine. Thanks. The web application creates some log files. I had to give permission to www-data to write these directories and files.

Hello Chris,
Thanks for your suggestion too. However, I think this will not suit me fully. Almost all the files in my web site are group write-protected (permission 755) by default and I would like to retain it that way. Hence, even if I add the user newbie to www-data group, I won't be able to oevrwrite the files from a sftp client logging in as newbie.

Thanks to both of you,

you may try using rsync daemon also