Server permissions issues

So, you are installing Drupal and have one of these installer errors:

The directory files is not writable. To proceed with the installation, please ensure that the files directory exists and is writable by the installer. If you are unsure how to create this directory and modify its permissions, please consult the on-line handbook or INSTALL.txt.

The Drupal installer requires write permissions to ./sites/default during the installation process. If you are unsure how to grant file permissions, please consult the on-line handbook.

To solve these errors, you need to modify the permissions on either the files directory or the sites/default directory (depending on the error message) so that it can be writable by the Drupal installer/web server process.

• Granting write permissions on Linux, Unix, and Mac servers
• Granting write permissions on Windows servers

For users of Drupal 6.3+

You may have received an error message like the following during installation:

The Drupal installer requires that you create ./sites/default/settings.php as part of the installation process, and then make it writable. If you are unsure how to grant file permissions, please consult the on-line handbook.

To fix this error, you first need to go into the directory where you installed Drupal and make a copy of the file at sites/default/default.settings.php (i.e., go into the sites directory and, within that, the default directory, and copy the file named "default.settings.php" to a new file called "settings.php").

Once you have completed this step, you will need to change the permissions of the new "settings.php" file, as described above.

(for the technical details around this change, see http://drupal.org/node/225880)