Set Wordpress file permissions an FS method on localhost

wp-file-permissions.md

Set Wordpress file permissions and FS method on localhost

On Mac OS X (Leopard), the Apache HTTP Server runs under the user account, _www which belongs to the group _www. To allow WordPress to configure wp-config.php during installation, update files during upgrades, and update the .htaccess file for pretty permalinks, give the server write permission on the files.

One way to do this is to change the owner of the wordpress directory and its contents to _www. Keep the group as staff, a group to which your user account belongs and give write permissions to the group.

Step 1

$ cd /<wherever>/Sites/<thesite>
$ sudo chown -R _www wordpress
$ sudo chmod -R g+w wordpress

This way, the WordPress directories have a permission level of 775 and files have a permission level of 664. No file nor directory is world-writeable.

Step 2

Add this to your wp-config.php

define('FS_METHOD', 'direct');

@rajeevbohan I don't see any security issues to do it on localhost, but would do it in production.

If you have access to the wp cli command, you can use this command to avoid manually editing the wp-config.php file.

wp config set --add FS_METHOD direct

Thanks lajlev and JollyWizard