Nginx document root owner

Question

I am setting up a django web app using Nginx + Gunicorn. I am using also an Amazon linux instance that is based on CentOS distro. Assuming that Nginx is running with a nginx user what's the best practice for the document root folder? Now I created /var/www/myapp folder that is owned by root. But I think that file uploads will not work for example because nginx cant create files in that folder. Is it enough to give the owning to nginx user?

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 09 '13 at 13:12

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The real question is with what user is running Gunicorn .
To simplify everything you could make the whole /var/www/myapp folder (and files+childes) owned by the gunicorn user.
Or everything could be owned by a 3rd user, and only specific folders be owned by 'gunicorn'. These folder will be used for upload,cache, etc. The developer should know what folders needs to be writable .

answered May 09 '13 at 13:12

Sandor Marton

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Yes, indeed I need a user to run Gunicorn to avoid to run it with root privileges. I could use this user also to create a service startup script. – carlo.polisini May 09 '13 at 15:18

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '13 at 13:15

I normally use the "www-data" user in Debian but I think CentOS has an "apache" user. You could always use that user, or create "www-data" or "nginx".

(Note: in the examples below www-user could be any user you choose to setup).

In nginx conf set the user

user www-user www-user; ## Default: nobody
Update owner for the www root to your www-user (and make sure the www-user has read/write permissions as required by your website).

Nginx document root owner

2 Answers2