Setting up permissions on Ubuntu for /var/www (web server)

In ubuntu all web projects are in /var/www folder, so you need to set up permissions on writing files, as by default this folder belongs to root user.

1. First of all you need to ensure, that your current user belongs to www-data group. Adding user to www-data group:

sudo adduser username www-data

You can find your username by typing this command:

whoami

2. Next we need to change /var/www folder owner and owner group:

sudo chown username:www-data -R /var/www

3. Next we need to change /var/www permissions to 755 (777 not recommended due security reasons)

sudo chmod 755 -R /var/www
sudo chmod g+s -R /var/www

Information from: http://askubuntu.com/questions/162866/correct-permissions-for-var-www-and-wordpress