The "Permission denied" error when trying to save an edited file in WinSCP indicates that your current user does not have the required permissions to modify the files or directories. Here are steps to resolve this issue:

Step-by-Step Guide

Connect to Your EC2 Instance via SSH

Connect to your EC2 instance using SSH to change the permissions.

ssh -i /path/to/your-key.pem ubuntu@your-ec2-instance-public-dns

Elevate Permissions for Your User Temporarily

If you're logged in as ubuntu or another user, you might need to temporarily elevate the permissions to edit files.

sudo -i

Change Ownership and Permissions

Change the ownership of the files to your current user (assuming ubuntu) and grant necessary permissions. Be careful with chmod 777 as it gives full permissions to everyone.

sudo chown -R ubuntu:ubuntu /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

Alternatively, if you are using the web server user (www-data), ensure that your SSH user has appropriate permissions to edit files:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

Add Your User to the Web Server Group

Adding your user to the www-data group can help if you want to keep the ownership to www-data.

sudo usermod -a -G www-data ubuntu

sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

After this, you need to log out and log back in for the group changes to take effect.

Using WinSCP with Elevated Permissions

If you still face issues, you can use the "SCP/Shell" option in WinSCP to execute commands as sudo. Here’s how:

Open WinSCP and go to the "Advanced Site Settings".

Under "Environment" -> "SCP/Shell", set the shell to sudo su -.

This will allow you to execute commands with sudo permissions.

Example Commands to Execute

# Connect to your EC2 instance

ssh -i /path/to/your-key.pem ubuntu@your-ec2-instance-public-dns

# Elevate permissions

sudo -i

# Change ownership to ubuntu user

sudo chown -R ubuntu:ubuntu /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

# Set permissions to 755

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

# Alternatively, if using www-data

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

# Add your user to the www-data group

sudo usermod -a -G www-data ubuntu

sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/html/your-laravel-project

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/your-laravel-project