own myuser
chown -R www-data:www-data /home/stage2/ftp
all folders = 755 + all files = 644
chmod -R u+rwX,go+rX,go-w /home/stage2/ftp
Add you user to the webserver user group:
sudo usermod -a -G www-data ubuntu
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30639174/how-to-set-up-file-permissions-for-laravel