Please tell me there is an easier way...

Is there a quick and easy way to quickly verify the permissions on files and folders, without using an FTP program to go through and examine each directory and file? :bigups:

Yes. Run a shell script on the site to recursively set all file and director permissions and then tweak the two configure files to their tighter settings.

If you don't have shell access to your server. Ask your webhost (nicely) if they'll do it for you.

FileZilla will do this for you too, but it sends each command separately, which is painfully slow given the number of times it needs to do so.

I don't know what a shell script is, but I do use FileZilla, so how do you do that?

Right click on a folder, set the permissions you need, check the "Recurse into subdirectories" checkbox and select the apply to directories only radio button.

When that's finished, right click on a file, set your file permissions, check the "recurse" box and select apply to files only.

When that's done, go and reset your two configure.php files to have permissions "444".

I should set all the folders to 755, and all files to 644 right? Set the two configure.php files to 444, and weren't there some other pages that were recommended to have only read access?

What you should set the permissions to will depend on your server operating system, and the security protocols in operation there. That's down to your web host to explain.

You're right about there being some other folders that need different permissions. You can get more information about this from this FAQ Entry.

Thank you!

I did this this morning!!

You can do this in one step by going to the root of your site and if, for examplem, the root of your site is Public_HTML for example, right click on that and set the file permission you want check the "Recurse into subdirectories" box and select the apply to directories only radio button.

When that's finished, do the same thing again only check the "recurse" box and select apply to files only.

Cheers,

Maxy

I've noticed that Filezilla AND WinSCP both have an issue changing anything below 644 on my site. Is that an issue with the applications (both of them) or is my hosting provider preventing outside applications from changing permissions below 644? I did the recursive step on my public_html folder and it changed anything above 644 down to 644, I did the same thing for the folders (down to 755), and then had to go to my hosts file manager to change the configuration files down to 444, as Filezilla and WinSCP couldn't alter them. Wierd.

Any thoughts or ideas?

I use both FileZilla and WinSCP and have never noticed this on either of them. Sounds as though your server security is configured to prevent these changes (or prevent them through FTP at least). That would be one to discuss with your webhost.

I see, looks like I'll be having a little chat with them, thanks!