title: How to configure access permissions for Cassandra on Linux Ubuntu
body: <p>Thank-you for reading this. I am stuck at step three on this tutorial pertaining to installing Cassandra: <a href="http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/GettingStarted#Step_3:_Start_Cassandra" rel="noreferrer">http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/GettingStarted#Step_3:_Start_Cassandra</a> </p>
  
  <p>I can only run this software as root. (<em>shouting this over fictional helicopter noise</em>) This seem like a terrible way to run the software. </p>
  
  <p>When starting the Cassandra server as my normal user I receive the following errors: </p>
  
  <p>1.) <code>15:46:00,147 |-ERROR in ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender[FILE] - openFile(/var/log/cassandra/system.log,true) call failed. java.io.FileNotFoundException: /var/log/cassandra/system.log (Permission denied)</code></p>
  
  <p>2.) <code>ERROR 20:46:00 Doesn't have write permissions for /var/lib/cassandra/data directory</code></p>
  
  <p>I tried changing the permissions several times and nothing has worked. I tried changing the <code>/var/log/cassandra/system.log</code> permissions for read/write for the <code>cassandra</code> group on the operating-system (OS). The command I used to do this was, <code>sudo chmod 664 /var/log/cassandra/system.log</code>. I found this page helpful in determining how to change the permissions:<a href="http://www.linux.org/threads/file-permissions-chmod.4094/" rel="noreferrer">http://www.linux.org/threads/file-permissions-chmod.4094/</a></p>
  
  <p>Then, I added my user-name to the <code>cassandra</code> group. From my understanding running the <code>/usr/sbin/cassandra -f</code> command as my user should allow me to access the <code>/var/log/cassandra/system.log</code> file, which would solve one of the errors, error number 1 above.</p>
  
  <p>Respectfully,</p>
  
  <p>user</p>