File permissions changed after FTP upload

[Clearercape]

Just started using Plesk with my new host. When ever I upload to new dedicated server (i've never had this problem on a shared server) via FTP all the permissions are changed and access to critical (Joomla) files is denied. I can manually change the permissions in file manager but not globally. So, what am I doing wrong?

 

[freaky@]

Can you elaborate on the permissions? Did you overwrite the files?

Depending on how PHP is running (as apache module or php-fpm it runs under 1 user for all sites, when running as fastcgi it can run as the user for that domain - do note static content it still fetched by the webserver which runs as 1 user for all domains).

Thus if you run PHP as module and the permissions are say:
-rw------- then your user (the FTP user) can read the file - but the webserver can not. If it's running as fastcgi thus php should work, *however* and this is pretty important, as all static content (like jpg files etc.) is still served by the webserver these permissions won't work either as it can't read the static files.

Anyways many FTP clients allow you to set the default permissions to set after uploading files. Maybe it's just set to strict and maybe you just overwrite all the files. This would cause the client to change the permissions. But your post isn't very extensive on where it goes wrong exactly.

 

[Clearercape]

Permission

Thanks for getting back to me.

Sorry for the lack of clarity.

Just change my hosting from managed to dedicated server, so never had to us Plesk before (Got Parallels on the Mac to run PC stuff)

The Joomla site was developed locally on a Mac and then uploaded to a clean directory on the new server. Normally only have to amend the config file to pick up the database, temp and log folders and away we go. The site goes live OK but now I have to change the permission to amend the config file, which is no problem. But to do any further updates there are files and directories all over the shop that now are un-writeable. And no matter what I do I cannot change the permission on the joomla logs file.

My FTP client allows me to change the permissions but the changes do no propagate down to the child folders. And in Plesks file manager they also do not propagate down. My thoughts are is it a Mac issue (FTP client) or am I doing something stupidly simple wrong?

Cheers

Paul

 

[freaky@]

If it's a dedicated server do you have SSH/console access (either is fine, in both cases you get the command line )?

If so, the console is much, much faster.

Since you say it's dedicated I'll assume there's no other sites on it. Even if there are, getting the permissions completely proper is impossible (both the webserver and PHP should be running as the user for that domain then and that's not possible). However, you can get PHP to run as the user in which case file permissions become somewhat complicate if you want them strict.

For the blunt way, on the console(/SSH):

cd /var/www/vhosts/whateverdomain.com/httpdocs
chmod -Rv a+rwX ./

This should take care of them all. If you don't want it to list the files it's altering remove the v in the last command (-R as opposed to -Rv thus).

 

[Clearercape]

Hi ya
Well, your blunt instrument did the job.
Everything appears to be working.

Thanks for you help.

Regards

Paul