File permissions
Definition by Best Host Ratings
Most web hosting providers run Unix servers. On UNIX servers every systems user has unique username, usually that is you web hosting account username. Each username can be a member of one or more system groups on the server.
Every file or directory on a Unix/Linux server has owner and a dedicated group.
In short the permissions define what privileges the users on the server have for a certain file.
In most FTP programs and web based file managers the file permissions are represented with numbers. For example:
index.html 644
mail.pl 755
The first number represents the owner permissions, the second the group permissions and the last one the permissions for all the other users on the system.
In general the permissions are:
1 - execute
2 - write
4 - read
So 644 means
6 (2+4) - read + write for owner
4 - read for group
4 - read for others
755
7 (2+4+1) write, read, execute for owner
5 (4+1) read and execute for group
5 (4+1) read and execute for others
Usually HTML files, images, CSS should be with 644 permissions
CGI scripts (Perl, Python, Ruby etc) should have 755 or 775 permissions in order to work.
Folders usually should have 775 or 755 permissions.
And if you wish to give full access to your files by all users on the system you need to give 777 permissions
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