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WordPress and FTP
I am having trouble with FTP on Wordpress with Turnkey: I cannot update Wordpress or install new themes. It seems to boil down to FTP. I just cannot get it working.
I have read:
http://www.chrisabernethy.com/why-wordpress-asks-connection-info/
This is partially helpful, in that it is telling me the nature of the problem, but nothing I try on this page seems to work. As well, there is lots of conflicting advice in the comments. One can never tell whether wrong step has ruined right step's ability to work.
Steps to reproduce:
1. Log into WordPress
2. Navigate to Appearance>>Install Themes
3. Open a Theme demo
4. Click on Install
5. Get FTP page and try many variations on the Ip address with protocols and ports. (see image)
I do think that I have not sorted out the permissions issue highlighted in the article above. I am lost.
Can you help?
Replies (9)
Very Helpful Postings
Reply 1Try giving ownership of your web root to www-data
Reply 2chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
Bugger!
Reply 3Sorry that didn't work, I was pretty sure it would... :(
I don't use WordPress, but from my reading I'm sure that it's a permission issue (like noted in the article). Perhaps the directory that the installs need to go in is read only (even when owned by www-data)?
AFAIK the FTP request is aimed at WordPress users on shared hosting, not on dedicated servers (like TKL is). TKL does not have a stadard FTP server installed (only SFTP via OpenSSH - and as www-data is not allowed to login as a normal user SFTP won't work).
Acording to the article you link to WP only needs write access to the wp-content/plugins folder (which I assume is probably at /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins) so try
chmod -R 655 /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins
and check ownership and permissions
cd /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins ls -la
If that doesn't work, then I'm not sure sorry...
Jeremy, thanks. I had already
Reply 4Jeremy, thanks. I had already tried that and it did not work.
I typed and ran the command. There was no feedback at the prompt, which I am led to believe is the *nix way of saying "done".
Tried the update later and I got
---
Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-3.5.1-new-bundled.zip…
Unpacking the update…
Could not copy files.
Installation Failed
---
I tried the FTP connection through FileZilla Client and I got:
Connection attempt failed with "EAI_NODATA - No address associated with nodename".
any suggestions? I am sure I am missing something fundamental that a non-noob knows instinctively.
P
To update this thread
Reply 5I did the "chown" part but not the "I also had to make the FS_Method,direct update in wp-config.php" part and it is now working.
Used turnkey-wordpress-13.0-wheezy-amd64.iso
Thanks for posting
Reply 6There is also a workaround that means you don't need to use the plugin. From Issue #173:
1. Give the webserver ownership of the /var/www/wordpress/wp-content/ folder tree.
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress/wp-content
2. Add an entry to the wp-config.php file. Open it for editing:
nano /var/www/wordpress/wp-config.php
And add this:
define('FS_METHOD', 'direct');Make sure it goes ABOVE this line:
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
3. Restart Apache:
service apache2 restart
That may be the best workaround/resolution for this
Reply 7Thanks for posting.
I suspect it's because of permissions
Reply 8Update WP
Reply 9I followed the above solution that David Taylor posted and was then able to update my plugins and themes through the Wordpress GUI. However when I go to update wordpress itself via the GUI I get the following.
Downloading update from http://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-4.3-new-bundled.zip…
Unpacking the update…
Could not copy files.
Installation Failed
This post is really very helpful for me. Thanks for sharing it. You have solved my problem.