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Installing Foswiki: Set the file and directory permissions for the installation

Set up the file and directory access permissions and ownership as required by your web server configuration so that the web server user (the user used by the web server to run CGI programs) can read and write within the directory where Foswiki is installed (e.g. foswiki directory).

By default, the Foswiki distribution sets file and directory access permissions that work well with many types of installations, including shared hosting. After installation, verify that the web server user has read access to all files and directories beneath the foswiki directory, and execute access for all directories. Also verify that the web server user has write access to the data and pub directories, as well as the subdirectories and files beneath these two directories.

If Foswiki stops working after you applied a change in access permissions and you wish to restore the original permissions, run the Unix commands located at Foswiki:Support.SettingFileAccessRightsLinuxUnix.

• Warning: Do not just run a chmod -R 770 foswiki. Providing execute access to all files is potentially dangerous and a common mistake.

Reducing access further in order to tighten security

If your web server host is shared: if your web server permits it, you should remove access from others.

If you have root user permissions: for additional security, you can change the ownership of the foswiki directory tree to the web server user, using the command chown -R user:group /path/to/foswiki. The web server username varies in different installations; here are some sample commands for various Linux distributions:

• RedHat, Fedora, CentOS, Gentoo, Mandriva : chown -R apache:apache /path/to/foswiki
• debian/Ubuntu/Kubuntu : chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/foswiki
• Suse : chown -R wwwrun:www /path/to/foswiki

Next step: Configure the locations of the Perl executable and the Foswiki modules
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Up: Overview

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Customized versions of InstallStepSetPermissions: