403 Forbidden error at store/admin URL

[dream_mike]

I have an installation problem. Several months ago I successfully installed zen-cart 1.5.0 on my Dreamhost domain. I am now trying to install on a second domain, one I use for test purposes.

I followed the installation instructions here: http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Installation
However, when I try to open my store/admin URL to complete the process, I get a 403 Forbidden page - don't have permission to access (((mystore)))/admin

Last time, I did not write down my exact steps, so can't say precisely what I did differently. But this should be very simple. What are my likely problems? Note that I tried both with and without a renamed admin directory (renamed to admin(((some string)))) and with and without changing the two dist-configure.php files to configure.php.

One item I wonder about. The instructions say to chmod 777 for, among others:
"[ZENHOME]/images -- do this folder recursively (all subfolders, and all their subfolders, and all their...). "
Should I do this only for directories, or for directories-and-files? And for the other directories I'm changing, should I likewise change their file permissions too?

[DrByte]

Did you happen to rename your /admin/ folder, as per the instructions? If you did, then it's unsurprising that you'd get an error when trying to access the /admin/ folder since it doesn't exist (granted, a 404 would be expected instead of a 403).

Perhaps something in your hosting account is specifically denying access to a folder named /admin/.
Zen Cart doesn't specifically trigger 403 responses for merely trying to access the admin folder. The 403 is being triggered by your server, and not by Zen Cart. If it happens to be a folder permissions issue, then it's no different than any other folder permissions issue you would have in any hosting account using any web page or script.

The important thing here is to find out the actual admin foldername, and use that instead. And if it's still called /admin/ then rename it.

[dream_mike]

I tried with the /admin both renamed and not renamed. Just to be clear, is the correct sequence:

upload files
change permissions
rename the two dist-configure.php's to configure.php
change admin name
access the new admin?

I notice that the typical permission in the old admin (named admin[stuff I added]) is
-rw-r--r-- e.g for admin_account.php

but is
-rwxr-x---
for the new installation. That's clearly wrong - should it have been written that way by the tar -xvf command?

I'll try changing those.

Still don't know: does the [ZENHOME]/images chmod apply only to directories, or to directories and files?

[dream_mike]

Aha, chmod 755 for all files under /admin did the trick; I now see the "Hello. Thank you for loading Zen Cart" page. But I still don't know why I got those odd permissions to begin with. That's everywhere in the installation, so I suspect I'll have the problem elsewhere too.

Should all files be 755 except those called out in the installation document?

And of course I must change the admin name.

[dream_mike]

I mean 744, not 755

[DrByte]

should it have been written that way by the tar -xvf command?

Zen Cart is distributed as a zip, not as a tarball.
If you're using a tarball, then the permissions being assigned are based on whatever you had before making the tarball.

The required permissions are the simple basic permissions that any file would use on a website.
Your webserver's default configuration for files and folders is what you want to use. A properly configured server will have that all set up in the umask already. And the common use of an FTP program to upload files will follow whatever umask etc settings are configured into the ftp-server daemon on the webserver.

The only exception to using standard permissions is the need for a couple files to be writable temporarily and a few folders to be made writable so that the browser can be used to upload images etc and save some file contents, and for allowing the system to save various temporary files.
http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?...-files-folders

All of this is outlined in the Implementation Guide found in the /docs/ folder. It's also pointed out to you during the zc_install system inspection stage.

[dream_mike]

Ah. The ftp was taking a long time (numerous retries for some reason) so I tried the tar method. Me and my bright ideas. Will go back to ftp of the individual files.

Looks like this will do it. Thanks for your help, will report back after a successful installation.

[jetx]

tar method is the best imo but yes the umask won't set the permissions up for you. Putty to your store directory and change all your store files to 644 (or whatever) and dirs to 755 using find, exec, chmod, eg: find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; and do the same for d (directories but use 755).

[dream_mike]

I now have a functioning store and admin setup. I find that reading the (mystore)/docs/1.readme_installation.html document would have been, for me, the best checklist for installation.

Thank you, DrByte and jetx for your helpful suggestions.