# Backup Failed Due to Permissions?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/backup-failed-due-to-permissions/167487
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 17, 2020, 11:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/backup-failed-due-to-permissions/167487 "2020-10-17T23:56:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@csmu](https://meta.discourse.org/u/csmu)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2020, 11:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/backup-failed-due-to-permissions/167487/1 "2020-10-17T23:56:27Z")
I’m getting a backup error with
```bash
[2020-10-17 23:40:29] EXCEPTION: lib/discourse.rb:92:in `exec': tar: /var/www/discourse/public/backups/default/bringing-data-to-life-2020-10-17-234010-v20200916085541.tar: Cannot open: Permission denied
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
```
I’ve logged into the container, went to the directory and confirmed the root user can create files.
I changed the permissions to 777 and the backup worked. Even though this is private site I’m not keen on leaving 777 permissions on a possibly public link.
_Does the backup process run with a different user from root?_
---
### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2020, 5:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/backup-failed-due-to-permissions/167487/3 "2020-10-18T05:59:05Z")
> [@csmu](#):
>
> Does the backup process run with a different user from root?
Hopefully, yes. Try chowning it to `discourse`.
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2020, 9:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/backup-failed-due-to-permissions/167487/4 "2020-10-18T09:58:23Z")
I just tested it in a Docker container and everything seems to be fine:
```plaintext
root@gerhard-test-app:/shared/backups/default# ls -la
total 29068
drwxr-xr-x 2 discourse www-data 4096 Oct 18 09:51 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 discourse www-data 4096 Sep 18 15:31 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 discourse www-data 7606150 Oct 18 09:48 discourse-test-site-2020-10-18-094806-v20201009190955.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 discourse discourse 7627995 Oct 18 09:51 discourse-test-site-2020-10-18-095138-v20201009190955.tar.gz
```
The first backup was created in the web interface. The second one was created with `discourse backup` command.
`/var/www/discourse/public/backups` is a symlink:
```plaintext
root@gerhard-test-app:/var/www/discourse/public# ls -la backups
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Oct 18 09:42 backups -> /shared/backups
```