sites/defalt/files need to be rewritable during configuration time. simply change write permission with a+w will not work on fedora since SELinux is turned on. we need to use chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t files to change the file type from httpd_sys_content_t to httpd_sys_rw_content_t Very ticky!!! [root@class default]# ls -Z -rw-rw-rw-. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 default.settings.php drwxr-xr-x. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 files -rw-rw-rw-. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_rw_content_t:s0 settings.php [root@class default]# chmod a+w files [root@class default]# ls -Z -rw-rw-rw-. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 default.settings.php drwxrwxrwx. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 files -rw-rw-rw-. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_rw_content_t:s0 settings.php [root@class default]# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t files [root@class default]# ls -Z -rw-rw-rw-. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 default.settings.php drwxrwxrwx. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_rw_content_t:s0 files -rw-rw-rw-. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_rw_content_t:s0 settings.php