EPERM error - Running window on a limited account

I’m running Windows on a limited account for the company I work for. My need for Local is to create a staging area to test updates and changes to the site before pushing them live.

I’m having issues with a local Wordpress installation. I’m getting an EPERM error. I’ve read through the FAQ’s and Read Only in my host file (in the ‘etc’ folder) is already UNCHECKED.

Beyond that, everything else I’m reading appears to point to Anti-virus software and the like. Our IT guy says we don’t run any anti-virus, anti malware software so that can’t be the issue. These are the protections we have in place in lieu of anti-virus: “Proxy restrictions, virus scanner on the proxy that checks the traffic in the business, google apps for email, account restrictions… Several things are in place to protect.”

He’s telling me that using a limited account, there are just certain files that aren’t going to be accessible and that this will likely never work with my current setup. Are there any other things we can point to to make figure out what’s blocking access to the host file within the ‘etc’ folder?

I’m desperate to make this work as I’m reading of many instances where people are running this on limited accounts just fine. I just don’t know specifically what we’re using as a security mechanism. The quoted measures above were our IT guy’s direct response to me when I asked how we’re being kept secure. I don’t know what questions to ask from here or where else to look but I really want to make this work and hopefully you’ve encountered someone in a similar situation and were able to circumvent the issue.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Hi Greg,

Sorry about this! I appreciate all of the details.

When you try creating/starting a site, do you see an elevation/UAC prompt to approve the changes? If not, this will cause some difficulties since Local relies on the hosts file to resolve the Local site domains.

As a workaround, you can have your IT department create an entry in the hosts file for the Local site. It should map to the Remote Host in the site’s “Database” tab.

Here’s an example entry:

192.168.94.100 some-site.local #Local Site

Hello Clay,

I just get this warning banner across the top and in the lower right corner I get a prompt telling me the Flywheel is attempting to acces the etc/hosts file.

I can’t get much further than this at this point without adding the entry you referred to but I’m not exaclty sure how to do that. Our IT guy may know that routine, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be reluctant to do anything like that. He keeps pointing at the limited user account being the problem, but I think I’ve read of people making this work just fine on a limited windows account.

Thanks for responding to this. I use this at home in my quest to try to learn more about site development and how it all ties in together, but I’m also looking at managing the maintenance side of things for my companie’s website and am in the midst of a learning curve. Our internal security restrictions are certainly hindering my ability to do things in here but still hoping there’s a way around this.

Thanks again for your response.

Hello Clay,

OK, I’ve gotten our IT to temporarily set me up as an admin windows account in hopes we can get this configured properly and then switch me back to a limited account.

Starting up Flywheel now appears to be working but when I click the ‘view site’ or ‘adminer’ buttons, it appears to be going out to the web to search for the site rather than trying to access it locally and returning an error. I’ve taken a screenshot of the host file to verify it is adding the entries automatically as I create them.

I was concerned spaces or syntax in my site names may be the issue (which is why so many entries…sorry) but it doesn’t seem to matter what I name the site, I’m still getting the same result.

I’ve included screenshots of 1) My hosts file and its entries. 2) The dashboard of Flywheel for the site I’m trying to access, and 3) the error being returned from my ISP when I try to access the site.

Hopefully this is something simple I’m overlooking. And one final question. Once I go back to a limited account assuming everything can be configured properly, will the addition of the entry into the hosts file be enough for me to access it or will I need admin access every time I stop and subsequently restart Flywheel and its sites?

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Greg Conley

Cherokee Steel Supply

196 Leroy Anderson Rd.

Monroe, Ga 30655

770-207-4621

800-729-0334

www.cherokeesteel.com