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Indiana University Northwest

Web Services and Web Technical Infrastructure

Unix Permissions for the Web Publishing

Unix Permissions should be set properly in order to have your pages display properly on the world wide web. If they are not correct, the files may not be allowed to display. Permissions on your web files should be set according to the following.
  • .shtml files and graphics files should be 644 (owner read & write, world read)
  • .pl , .cgi should be 755 (owner full rights, world read & execute)
    • note: 700 is automatically set for the transform.cgi file for processing forms
  • directories should be 755 (owner full rights, world read & execute)
  • .htaccess files for secured files should be 644

See: changing rights - PC or changing rights - Mac for information on how to change rights through SSH File Transfer Program.

Default permissions should be checked and set by clicking on Edit, Settings, and clicking on File Transfer, Advanced in SSH File Transfer Program shown below:

permission settings on ssh2 client

If your page doesn't display, what error message are you getting? See a couple of the errors below:

  • The page cannot be found - would be cause by page not there, or the case in the link is not the same as the case of the filename - remember unix IS case sensitive.
  • Server error - would be the cause of a cgi file with incorrect rights.
  • Forbidden - You don't have permission to access 'filename' on this server - would be the cause of the.shtml file not having correct permissions.