Proper permissions for website directories and to enable rsync deployment - permissions

Question

I'm setting up a new website on a new Ubuntu droplet at Digital Ocean. I set this up previously on a different droplet and rsynced the website contents to it. I followed directions I found on the web, but didn't keep detailed-enough notes. I'm just trying to replicate this on the new Droplet. But I've messed up somehow. My knowledge of permissions, etc. is rudimentary :-(
My server has: /var/www/html
This is what I did:
• sudo usermod -a -G www-data [myusername]
• sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
• sudo chmod -R g+rw /var/www
• sudo chmod -R g+rws /var/www
I then created “/var/www/howardmann.us/public_html” for my website.
(I didn't put the public_html directory in var/www/html. I didn't on my other Droplet. Perhaps I should.)
sudo ls -la /var/www
total 16
drwxrwsr-x 4 www-data www-data 4096 Feb 25 15:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Feb 24 14:27 ..
drwxr-sr-x 3 root www-data 4096 Feb 25 15:43 howardmann.us
drwxrwsr-x 2 www-data www-data 4096 Feb 25 15:42 html
sudo ls -la /var/www/howardmann.us/public_html
total 8
drwxr-sr-x 2 root www-data 4096 Feb 25 15:43 .
drwxr-sr-x 3 root www-data 4096 Feb 25 15:43 ..
Now, excerpts of rsync script (successful to my other Droplet) result from my laptop now:
1.
howardm$ ./deploy.sh
sending incremental file list
rsync: failed to set times on "/var/www/howardmann.us/public_html/.": Operation not permitted (1)
rsync: recv_generator: mkdir "/var/www/howardmann.us/public_html/css" failed: Permission denied (13)
* Skipping any contents from this failed directory *
3.
rsync: mkstemp "/var/www/howardmann.us/public_html/.DS_Store.8zaaQg" failed: Permission denied (13)
Question: How do I fix ownership and permissions on the server directories for 1) proper permissions for a website and 2) permit a rsync deploy?
For comparison, here is the status of my current working web site on the other Droplet:
howardm#howardmann:~$ ls -la /var/www/
total 20
drwxrwxr-x 5 howardm www-data 4096 Mar 5 2016 .
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Mar 28 2015 ..
drwxrwxr-x 4 howardm www-data 4096 Jun 8 2016 howardmann.us
drwxrwxr-x 2 howardm www-data 4096 Mar 29 2015 html
Thanks!
Howard

Answer 1

Well, I fixed this after reading some more about permissions for a website.
My website folder is titled howardmann.us, which contains a public_html folder with the website contents.
So: /var/www/howardmann.us/public_html. (/var/www also contains a html directory)
I achieved the relevant ownership/permissions with:
sudo chown -R howardm:www-data /var/www/
I'm the owner, and www-data the group.
sudo usermod -a -G www-data [myusersername]
I'm a member of the www-data group
sudo chmod -R 2775 /var/www/
This yields the proper permissions, I believe for a web site.
I made sure the same owner:group applied to all these directories:
ls -l /var/www
total 8
drwxr-sr-x 3 howardm www-data 4096 Feb 26 19:23 howardmann.us
drwxrwsr-x 2 howardm www-data 4096 Feb 25 15:42 html
ls -l /var/www/howardmann.us
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 11 howardm www-data 4096 Feb 5 2017 public_html
Now rsync works without errors.
If anyone believes these ownership/permissions for a website are (substantially) improper, please comment.
Howard