G'day all,

I am using a US host for my Joomla sites that have an autoresponder attached because it is part of the hosting deal. I get 10 sites hosted with cPanel, 30000 subscribers on autoresponder, an affiliate management program, support desk and membership site all for $19.95 a month. As you can see, that is quite an attractive deal. Actually, I have a couple of hosts, but have run into problems with this new one.

I have now loaded two sites to this host and have had problems with file ownership. Admin at the hosting service seemed to fix the first one, but on going in yesterday I noticed things like the confguration.php set to 777, which I changed back to 644.

With the new site loaded up, I noticed that the owner and group permissions were the same number, indicating that I was a group member and not an owner. I felt this confirmed because when I changed the permissions on configuration.php, I was able to edit the Global Config settings at 777, but not at 644 which should of been possible.

The hosting admin has come back today and let me know that if I do a Fantastico install of Joomla, that permissions of 777 are attached to the following directories:-

- cache
- components
- images
- language
- media
- modules
- plugins
- templates
- tmp

This would seem rather odd as the Joomla documentation says they should be set at 755 and the rest of the files to 644. (docs.joomla.org/What_are_the_recommended...ctory_permissions%3F). So is the Fantastico installation just related to this host or is it general across all hosting with Fantastico? I never use Fantastico, but develop locally and load and extract zip files on the server. I thought the variance in default permissions compared to Fantastico permissions worth mentioning however.

One of my comments back to them regarding permissions was answered as follows:-

>> I am no expert on hosting, but this is sort of indicating to me that I am a group member and not an owner and that's why I don't have write permissions at 644.

That's because php is not installed as suphp on the server (it is known to break some scripts).

It is looking like I am going to run into problems with this hosting service in dealing with Joomla sites. Can anything be done to fix these problems, say in php.ini or with the addition of some other code?

Any advice would be appreciated as I would like to keep dealing with them for the other benefits provided.

Cheers,


Ric

Ric,

I believe this is a "feature" of some hosting configs and Joomla. A colleague of mine has had exactly the same issue but I, on the other hand, haven't (we have different hosts).

Sometimes you can get around these issues by using something like JoomlaXplorer (sort of a Joomla component file manager). Depending on your level of JoomlaFu, you might want to try it.

I think my friend got the host to change the ownership and permissions of the files but I believe he still had a few issues (I'll ask him how he resolved it all).

You might want to try a manual install, rather than use Fantastico, and see if you still have the issue. My personal preference is for manual these days and it gives you a better feel for things that can go wrong.
Edited to add: And you might want to fix all those 777s to 644s - after having my sites hacked a few times, I'm now completely paranoid about that sort of thing.

cheers,
Sue

Thanks Sue. I'll be interested to hear more. It's almost in the too hard basket, but I'll check the extension out you mention.

BTW.. I NEVER use Fantastico... I like to know what's going on and particularly name my own databases..

Cheers,


Ric

Oh, phew. It's convenient, but like you, I want to name my database & users etc.

I'll chase up my friend and ask him today about how he solved the problem. It was a real pain for him.

Hi Ric,
I have just setup a VPS and in my research do to so I found a recommendation to run suPHP. This runs php in cgi mode rather than as an Apache module, the advantage being that PHP runs as account owner rather than the Apache owner in my case the account owner. This means that the account owner (you) and PHP have the same file ownership.
I am not sure how this effects Fantastico which I used to used (back in the mambo days I think or maybe early Joomla!) and had the issues you are describing and I too like to have more control than it gives me.
Now I upload the Joomla! zip file using ftp, unzip it in cPanel's file manager and install. File permissions are exactly as they should be.
This is the checklist I used when setting up my server.

http://docs.joomla.org/Security_Checklis...ing_and_Server_Setup

(with the help of the techos @ http://www.micron21.com.au)

I hope this is of some help.

OK, I found out how my friend got around the permissions thing and I don't think it's a thing you'd want to do

Basically, he turned on the FTP option and then used his root name & password in the details (I've attached his explanation image). That solution doesn't do much for me - but apparently he had got desperate to sort it out. To be honest, I'm not sure how this would work anyway (I was away the day they did "unix") so I can't say this'll definitely be the answer should you want to attempt it.

He also said that at first, he couldn't get the FTP to "turn on", so he had to find the switch (configuration.php???) and set it to '1'.

G'day Sue & Geoffrey...

@Geoffrey..
Yes, I know about suPHP and I believe all good Joomla servers run this. It isn't being run on the host I'm referring to as he claims it breaks some scripts. No idea why but it looks like this is the answer to the ownership problem.

I'm looking at a VPS at the moment Geoffrey for all my client sites. I currently use a reseller account at Hostgator which has served me well for many years. Lots of things I am unsure of about VPS, particularly the initial account set up. I imagine you need a form on your site with all the client details and a link to a PayPal subscription button.

I've been looking at Jumba. Reasonably priced until you add the cost of cPanel..

@Sue....
The FTP layer can be helpful Sue insofar as permitting file transfers between you and the server. Unfortunately, it doesn't affect the permissions of the file when working in the backend of Joomla. If you don't have write access as the owner, you're stuffed!

For example, if you want to do some work in sh404SEF, all the files are unwriteable. You have to go into Filezilla for example and make them all 777, then do the work, then go and change all the files back to 644. Crazy stuff.

It would seem to me that unless the host is prepared to run under suPHP, I will have to abandon running Joomla sites on his server, which will effectively mean I wion't run any sites there at all.. LOL.

Thanks for all the feedback though.. Much appreciated.

Oh yes, I agree. But he maintains it fixed the problem. Go figure.

It'll be a bummer if you can't have Joomla on your host. Have you checked the Joomla forums - I believe this is a fairly well known "feature" (ahem).