[apache] www-data permissions?

So I have a directory in /var/www (called cake) and I need to allow www-data to write to it, but I also want to write to it (without having to use sudo). I'm afraid to change the permissions to 777 in case some other user on my machine (or a hacker) attempts to modify files in that directory. How do I only allow access for myself and Apache's www-data?

As stated in an article by Slicehost:

User setup

So let's start by adding the main user to the Apache user group:

sudo usermod -a -G www-data demo

That adds the user 'demo' to the 'www-data' group. Do ensure you use both the -a and the -G options with the usermod command shown above.

You will need to log out and log back in again to enable the group change.

Check the groups now:

groups
...
# demo www-data

So now I am a member of two groups: My own (demo) and the Apache group (www-data).

Folder setup

Now we need to ensure the public_html folder is owned by the main user (demo) and is part of the Apache group (www-data).

Let's set that up:

sudo chgrp -R www-data /home/demo/public_html

As we are talking about permissions I'll add a quick note regarding the sudo command: It's a good habit to use absolute paths (/home/demo/public_html) as shown above rather than relative paths (~/public_html). It ensures sudo is being used in the correct location.

If you have a public_html folder with symlinks in place then be careful with that command as it will follow the symlinks. In those cases of a working public_html folder, change each folder by hand.

Setgid

Good so far, but remember the command we just gave only affects existing folders. What about anything new?

We can set the ownership so anything new is also in the 'www-data' group.

The first command will change the permissions for the public_html directory to include the "setgid" bit:

sudo chmod 2750 /home/demo/public_html

That will ensure that any new files are given the group 'www-data'. If you have subdirectories, you'll want to run that command for each subdirectory (this type of permission doesn't work with '-R'). Fortunately new subdirectories will be created with the 'setgid' bit set automatically.

If we need to allow write access to Apache, to an uploads directory for example, then set the permissions for that directory like so:

sudo chmod 2770 /home/demo/public_html/domain1.com/public/uploads

The permissions only need to be set once as new files will automatically be assigned the correct ownership.