Which directory should be writable to update wordpress?

I configured file permissions according to here like this.

apache user runs server and wordpress user owns directory, this user is only used for this site.

drwxr-xr-x  5 wordpress wordpress  4096 Apr 12 01:12 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 root      root       4096 Apr 10 16:19 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress   418 Sep 25  2013 index.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress 19929 Jan 18  2013 license.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  3193 Jan 27 20:18 readme-ja.html
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress 10156 Jan 27 20:18 readme.html
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  4892 Oct  4  2013 wp-activate.php
drwxr-xr-x  9 wordpress wordpress  4096 Jan 27 20:18 wp-admin
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress   271 Jan  9  2012 wp-blog-header.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  4795 Sep  6  2013 wp-comments-post.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  4255 Jan 27 20:18 wp-config-sample.php
-r--r-----  1 wordpress wordpress  4471 Apr 12 01:12 wp-config.php
drwxrws---  5 wordpress wordpress  4096 Apr 12 11:41 wp-content
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  2932 Sep 25  2013 wp-cron.php
drwxr-xr-x 12 wordpress wordpress  4096 Jan 27 20:18 wp-includes
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  2380 Oct 25 07:58 wp-links-opml.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  2359 Oct 25 07:58 wp-load.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress 31909 Dec  4 05:12 wp-login.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  8235 Nov 13 20:58 wp-mail.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress 10880 Nov  5 09:24 wp-settings.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress 25665 Nov 13 12:23 wp-signup.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  4026 Oct 25 07:58 wp-trackback.php
-rw-r--r--  1 wordpress wordpress  3015 Oct 25 11:29 xmlrpc.php


$ ls -la wp-content/
total 24
drwxrws--- 5 wordpress wordpress 4096 Apr 12 11:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 wordpress wordpress 4096 Apr 12 01:12 ..
-rw-rw---- 1 wordpress wordpress   28 Jan  9  2012 index.php
drwxr-xr-x 3 wordpress wordpress 4096 Jan 27 20:18 languages
drwxr-x--- 4 wordpress wordpress 4096 Jan 27 20:18 plugins
drwxrws--- 5 wordpress wordpress 4096 Jan 27 20:18 themes

And add apache user to wordpress group

$ id apache
uid=48(apache) gid=48(apache) groups=48(apache),503(wordpress)

But with these permissions, I can't update wordpress itself or plugins. Which directory should be writable to update correctly and keep as possible as secure?

Topic permissions updates Wordpress

Category Web


Tetsu, the Codex has some good insights on this:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions

Unfortunately there is no 'one size fits all' according to the Codex. It may depend on your host.

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