# Wowza installation permissions

**URL:** <https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-installation-permissions/43424>\
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\
**Tags:** server-administration\
**Created:** [July 22, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-installation-permissions/43424 "2014-07-22T12:24:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Chalmers\_Hamill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chalmers\_Hamill](https://community.wowza.com/u/Chalmers_Hamill)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-installation-permissions/43424/1 "2014-07-22T12:24:22Z")

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Howdy folks,

I’m running Wowza 4 on Linux as a non-root user, and am wondering what permissions are _actually_ needed by the Wowza user for everything to function properly.

I found [this thread](https://www.wowza.com/forums/showthread.php?7469-File-ownership-permissions-too-open) from a while back, which indicated that the only writer permissions needed were on the ‘applications’ directory, which makes sense.

I am wondering two things:

- Is the applications directory still the only thing that Wowza needs write access to? I would have expected it to need write access on the logs directory also, at least.

- How does the manager affect this? Does the manager need write access anywhere?

Just looking to lock things down as much as possible, per organization policy.

Thanks!

–

Morgan Hamill

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**Author:** ![Paul\_Shields](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.wowza.com/paul_shields/32/390_2.png) [@Paul\_Shields](https://community.wowza.com/u/Paul_Shields)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2014, 9:47am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-installation-permissions/43424/2 "2014-07-23T09:47:02Z")

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Hi,

Yes, Wowza does write to the [install-dir]/logs/ directory. Other directories under the [install-dir] also have files which may be written to, created, deleted etc by the Wowza process. When running Wowza as a [named user](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-run-wowza-streaming-engine-as-a-named-user-linux-and-os-x%28Linux-and-OS-X%29) I’d look at locking that user down, setting file ownerships so only that named user can write and read the files. You may have to go through a few iterations to find what works for you. As you know Wowza runs as root with a default install, and as mentioned in the link you refer to the default settings are to make the installation as simple as possible.

Paul