How do I know which linux user Wordpress uses for plugin installation

Question

I'm trying to setup Wordpress to be able to install plugins via SFTP (SSH) on a Centos 6 VPS.

I've been able to modify wp-config so it uses the right credentials with user as my SFTP user.

Now I have a permission related problem, as if I do a chmod 777 on my wp-content folder I'm able to install, but with the normal permissions it can't create folders.

I'm using Nginx and all my wp-content files and folders are owned by user and I've tried setting the group to nginx but it doesn't work.

I also tried setting the user as nginx but still no luck.

UPDATE : I found out wordpress was using apache as user but I want to change this to my user instead. How can I do this ?

Answer 1

On your production server, in your WordPress index.php file, at the top, you can temporarily put echo(exec("whoami"));die();

Then browse to your WordPress site and see what user was running. On Ubuntu, mine was www-data.

This was useful for me for: Can I install/update WordPress plugins without providing FTP access?

Answer 2

The Wordpress user is also the web server user, so this should work:

ps -ef | grep http

or

ps -ef | grep apache

Answer 3

So it clearly says that a group has no W access.

You can do: chmod -R g+w /your/plugins/dir

And then, nginx group will be able to write there.