Title: Using Admin editor users and permissions issues Last modified: August 21, 2016 --- # Using Admin editor users and permissions issues * [jsandstrone](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jsandstrone/) * (@jsandstrone) * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-admin-editor-users-and-permissions-issues/) * New to WordPress and going through the doc to do themeing and learn the admin interface. Adding a custome favicon requires adding code to the header.php file. So far so good. Can do with my IDE. However when I try to use wp-admin appearance >editor I get the * > You need to make this file writable before you can save your changes. See the > Codex for more information. * message. So I change do a bit of homework and get mostly a bunch of * > You’re a moron, read the Codex > I did, and it still isn’t working blah blah * so I read what was there on the codex. I’m thinking that if I knew what user WordPress was using to access the server, I could add that user to my webdev users group, the group I use to assign users access to web files, and that might solve the problem. * When I changed permissions to anything but 755 (I didn’t try every possible combination),- what I ususally use for general web, the themes dissapear from the wp-admin panel. IE, I do: `chmod -R 0776 themes` and the wp-admin says theme not found or some such (appoligies but did not document while the issue was happening). Also just changing the permissions on the header.php file caused similar issues. When I change the permissions back, the problems go away and all is well again. * Q1. What is the user name that WordPress uses to access the server? and can you add that to the group that has access to your web files so that the wp-admin editor can make and save changes to the header.php, footer.php, …etc files? * Q2. Am I missing a concept about how WordPress works when trying to change permissions for specific files so that they can be edited using the wp-admin panel appearence >editor? How can I fix the problem of not being able to write to files I want to customize? * Thanks J Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total) * [esmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/esmi/) * (@esmi) * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-admin-editor-users-and-permissions-issues/#post-4490815) * > What is the user name that WordPress uses to access the server? * If this is your server, you are best placed to answer this. It varies from server to server. * > Am I missing a concept about how WordPress works when trying to change permissions > for specific files * Nope. See [Changing_File_Permissions](http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions)/ Given your description above, I suspect there’s something “unusual” in your server’s configuration. Changing the wp-content/themes folder to (say) 766 should not cause the themes to disappear from the back end of WP. * Moderator [Jan Dembowski](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jdembowski/) * (@jdembowski) * Forum Moderator and Brute Squad * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-admin-editor-users-and-permissions-issues/#post-4490827) * > What is the user name that WordPress uses to access the server? * WordPress is just another PHP application running on your web server. The actual user id varies from distribution and setup. For example on Ubuntu LTS it runs as the `www-data` user. * > and can you add that to the group that has access to your web files so that > the wp-admin editor can make and save changes to the header.php, footer.php,… > etc files? * You could try. I myself find it to be dangerous to use the built in admin editors. One PHP typo can ruin your day. * My preference is to ssh to the web server and edit the theme or plugin files using vi. * > How can I fix the problem of not being able to write to files I want to customize? * Find out what the web server runs as (user ID) and what the file and directories are actually owned as. If there is a common group then you may be able to set the files to that group ownership and edit them that way. * See [http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions](http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions) for some more examples/explanations of the permission scheme. * Thread Starter [jsandstrone](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jsandstrone/) * (@jsandstrone) * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-admin-editor-users-and-permissions-issues/#post-4490837) * Thank you for your replies. From the replies it would seem that just using your favorite editor is the accepted method to change theme files. Is it correct to think that in a working envoirment, IE, at Joe’s Web Design Inc, the normm would be to just use an editor to accomplish theme customizations and ignore the admin panel editing functions? * thanks j * Moderator [Jan Dembowski](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jdembowski/) * (@jdembowski) * Forum Moderator and Brute Squad * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-admin-editor-users-and-permissions-issues/#post-4490881) * > Is it correct to think that in a working envoirment, IE, at Joe’s Web Design > Inc, the normm would be to just use an editor to accomplish theme customizations > and ignore the admin panel editing functions? * I am not a web developer/designer but the answer is yes. 😉 * The file editor in WordPress is pretty basic and lacks syntax highlighting, search and replace, line number etc. and making a PHP typo can be catastrophic. * By using the editor of your choice you can get all of those benefits but will have to upload the files via FTP or whatever file management tools your host provides you. * I prefer to make changes via ssh and vi on my live box. _That’s an amazing bad practice on my part_. Fortunately I have good backups and have been able to get out of jams quickly enough. * Try looking at this link and site. It’s loaded with lots of good material for developing WordPress themes. * [http://themeshaper.com/2012/10/22/the-themeshaper-wordpress-theme-tutorial-2nd-edition/](http://themeshaper.com/2012/10/22/the-themeshaper-wordpress-theme-tutorial-2nd-edition/) Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total) The topic ‘Using Admin editor users and permissions issues’ is closed to new replies. ## Tags * [editing](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/editing/) * [permissions](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/permissions/) * [WP Header](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/wp-header/) * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 4 replies * 3 participants * Last reply from: [Jan Dembowski](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jdembowski/) * Last activity: [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-admin-editor-users-and-permissions-issues/#post-4490881) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics