Knowledgebase

What are file permissions and how to change them

File permissions control what a user can do with a file/directory. On your hosting account each file and directory has permissions which you can change.

A file/directory has permissions set for three different classes: the owner (you), the group (other users to whom you have given some access to your account), and the visitors/viewers of your site. Each class can have the permissions to read, write, execute or no permission to do anything.

File permissions can be represented either with a combination of letters (r,w,x) and hyphens (-), or with numbers (0,1,2,4). For example:

rwxr-xr-x=755

In the first way of representing file permissions (e.g. rwxr-xr-x) the first three symbols are for the owner, the second for the group, and the third for the visitor. In the second way (755) each class has one digit. And here in short is what these letters and numbers mean:

--- (0) no permission 
--x (1) execute permission
-w- (2) write permission
r-- (4) read permission
rw- (6) read and write permission 
r-x (5) read and execute permission 
rwx (7) read, write and execute permission 

You can easily change the file permissions of the files and directories on your HostKnox account with an FTP client (e.g. FileZilla). You can also do it through SSH or the Pixie control panel.

For more information, read the file permissions tutorial.

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