wordpress on docker permission issues

Using the following docker compose file I can make a working wordpress site on AWS.
Unfortunately I can not add, update or delete plugins.
If I change all file permissions in the wordpress directory to 777 everything works.

The the new files created are owned by user:
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin

Simply changing wordpress files to user:
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
does not fix the problem.

Any Ideas on how to make this work?

thanks.

```
version: "3"

services:
nginx:
image: nginx:latest
ports:
- 80:80
- 443:443
volumes:
- ./wordpress:/var/www/wordpress
- ./websites:/var/www/websites
- ./nginx-config/default.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
mysql:
image: mysql:latest
environment:
MYSQL_DATABASE: wpdb
MYSQL_USER: wpuser
MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret
volumes:
- ./dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
php-fpm:
image: bitnami/php-fpm:latest
volumes:
- ./wordpress:/var/www/wordpress

```

 

The issue with file permissions and ownership likely stems from the fact that the user and group under which the PHP-FPM service runs (daemon) do not have the correct permissions to modify the files in the WordPress directory.

One solution is to ensure that both the Nginx and PHP-FPM services use the same user and group, typically `www-data`, which is the default for many web server configurations. This can be done by creating a custom Dockerfile for the PHP-FPM service to change the user and group to `www-data`.

Here's how you can modify your setup:

1. **Create a custom Dockerfile for PHP-FPM:**

```Dockerfile
# Dockerfile
FROM bitnami/php-fpm:latest

# Change the user to www-data
USER root
RUN usermod -u 33 www-data && groupmod -g 33 www-data
RUN chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress
USER www-data
```

2. **Update your `docker-compose.yml` to use the custom PHP-FPM image:**

```yaml
version: "3"

services:
nginx:
image: nginx:latest
ports:
- 80:80
- 443:443
volumes:
- ./wordpress:/var/www/wordpress
- ./websites:/var/www/websites
- ./nginx-config/default.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
mysql:
image: mysql:latest
environment:
MYSQL_DATABASE: wpdb
MYSQL_USER: wpuser
MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret
volumes:
- ./dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
php-fpm:
build:
context: .
dockerfile: Dockerfile
volumes:
- ./wordpress:/var/www/wordpress
```

3. **Build and run the Docker containers:**

```sh
docker-compose up --build
```

This setup ensures that the `www-data` user has the appropriate ownership and permissions on the WordPress files, allowing the application to add, update, and delete plugins without requiring overly permissive file permissions (like 777).