# Can I change group permissions from www-data to something else?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-change-group-permissions-from-www-data-to-something-else/195276>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [September 21, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-change-group-permissions-from-www-data-to-something-else/195276 "2010-09-21T01:00:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![cimenta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@cimenta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cimenta)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-change-group-permissions-from-www-data-to-something-else/195276/1 "2010-09-21T01:00:26Z")

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hi

I want to  
[list]  
[_] securely  
[_] grant remote rw access  
[\*] to **some** web server data directories  
[/list]

It looks like there is need to change group name from www\_data to  
something else to accomplish that.

Is that ok for correct run of nginx?

Or would you know of any secure way how to grant rw access to some users  
to only some web server data directories on Ubuntu? I do not want to  
give the use shell access.

Thank you

R.

Posted at Nginx Forum:

> **[can I change group permissions from www-data to something else?](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,132374,132374#msg-132374)**
>
> hi I want to \[list\] \[\*\] securely \[\*\] grant remote rw access \[\*\] to \_\_some\_\_ web server data directories \[/list\] It looks like there is need to change group name from www\_data to something else to accomplish that. Is th

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cimenta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@cimenta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cimenta)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-change-group-permissions-from-www-data-to-something-else/195276/2 "2010-09-21T01:58:57Z")

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On 20 Set 2010 23h59 WEST, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

Hello,

Suggestion: create user accounts for each one you want to give access  
to.

Symlink the directories you want to give them access to under /var/www  
to one sub-directory of their home directory.

Depending on the application that the users are running some  
directories would have to be owned by www-data. For instance, in  
Drupal, the files directory has to be 775 www-data.www-data or  
something along these lines.

Of course if your use case doesn’t consider files/directories created  
by the application that each user is running then everything is much  
simpler.

Ex: users john and joan have can upload files to their personal sites.

/var/www/users/john/sites -\> /home/john/sites  
/var/www/users/joan/sites -\> /home/joan/sites

— appa