Ubuntu WordPress Setup: You Do Not Have Permissions Necessary to View the Contents of wp_content

Question

I just installed WordPress on Ubuntu for the first time according to these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WordPress

Everything is working great... Except,

When I try to add my theme to the "wp_content" folder, I get the alert:

You Do Not Have Permissions Necessary to View the Contents of "wp_content"

In my previous life with WAMP, I used to store and edit my themes directly in the wp_content directory. That is the workflow I would like to use for LAMP.

How can I add/edit themes in the wp_content directory without breaking my WordPress installation?

Answer 1

Are you getting this error when trying to copy/upload the files to your wp-content folder? If so, it's likely just a permissions issue. Is your user account the owner of that folder? If not, try this:

$ sudo chown username /path/to/wp-content

...of course replacing username and the path with appropriate values. That will probably fix the problem, but if it doesn't, you may need to give yourself write access:

$ sudo chmod u+w /path/to/wp-content