roywezo

I fixed the original issue and the associated issue plugins wanting ftp access issues, by using SSH client commands as below:

*sudo su*
*chown root:root /var/empty/sshd*
*chmod 711 /var/empty/sshd*
*exit*

If you have this incorrectly set in your environment then you will likely be in the situation as I was, that you can’t ssh into the server to fix it. Here is my link to the resolution of how to bypass this situation
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=224774

This FTP requirement only started once I got passed the initial reported issue. Prior to my issue, the plugins load was seamless.

Actually my site is currently not working, also no ftp and nor ssh. I have logged a request on the AWS EC forum. I may have messed up permissions for that as well (sigh).

FYI this is an extract of the log after my SSH client connection fails to establish:
Starting sshd: /var/empty/sshd must be owned by root and not group or world-writable. [FAILED]
Starting ntpd: [ OK ]
MySQL Daemon failed to start.
Starting S64mysqld: [FAILED]
Starting sendmail: [ OK ]
Starting sm-client: can not chdir(/var/spool/clientmqueue/): Permission denied
Program mode requires special privileges, e.g., root or TrustedUser.
[FAILED]

Actually I appear to have a related issue, which is the requirement to enter FTP details when downloading plugins. Previously the plugins just loads directly. Seems as if apache or root of something has the ownership which ec2-user should have to access to wp-config.php or something. I gave temporary 777 permission to wp-config.php but no success.

Do you have any suggestions on a solution?

I have searched for and tried lots of other things like:

1. define(‘FS_METHOD’,’direct’); in the wp-config.php file – this failed when wordpress plugin tried to create the plugin directory

2. define(“FTP_HOST”, “localhost”); define(“FTP_USER”, “your-ftp-username”); define(“FTP_PASS”, “your-ftp-password”); – (the ftp connection failed on this)

3. chown -hR webuser:webuser /var/mydomain.com/public_html/wordpress/
(Replacing webuser with whatever user is running your Apache server and the last part with the direct path to your root WordPress installation folder) – this had no impact although I’m not sure if I got the wordpress path correct

4. I transferred the plugin via FTP – I did note some errors, eg on the footer. This works but is not ideal for me as I want plugin install to be a direct pass-through to my site

Thanks

You beauty – that worked.
I changed permissions on all /var/www/html/ directories to 755 and files to 644.

For the one file that I originally wanted to change -child/style.css, I set the permission to 766 (this is the lowest wordpress would accept to use the backend editor). I will change it back to 644 when done.

In your opinion, are these settings OK, or should I harden some of them? Are there any other directories or files that need permission changing.

Thanks for your guidance on this. I have learnt a lot about permissions as well as getting setup and using Filezilla – a worthy exercise.

I can access the wordpress files through Filezilla and ssh cli. The issue is with my site front and backend…Thanks

Hi, I did not articulate that this error has locked out everything. Basically my site is not accessible. There is neither a parent nor child theme accessible from the backend and no plugins – very little, a bit like a shell.
Cheers