CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wordpressapachesecuritychmodchown
Daniël Tulp
Daniël Tulp

Reputation: 1845

File/folder permissions and ownership breaks wordpress functionality, what is a secure solution?

I have a wordpress network running (on a shared host) to great satisfaction apart from a security dilemma.

When I first installed the application, I did this through a plesk Cpanel. And later when I started to add plugins I realised the server used safe_mode On. I asked the host to remove it and they did but before this I did install most of my plugins through FTP because of permission problems due to the safe_mode On setting.

But now I seem to be running into a different setting that is limiting me. Because I installed plugins through FTP, my FTP user is the owner of the files. Now when I try to update through the normal wordpress routine, it doesn't have sufficient permission for the stream folder and when I set this to 777 it has not enough permission for the plugin folders because apache is not the owner of the folders and files.

I do not want to set all my folders to 777 (775 also doesn't work), changing owner (I tested with creating a folder through a Wordpress plugin) works, but http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions tells me I shouldn't let apache be the owner of my files and folders.

Could you advise me about:

If you need more information about the shared hosting, please let me know.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2144

Answers (1)

Pete
Pete

Reputation: 68

I've run into similar problems in the past.

Ultimately, I found myself reading through the Hardening WordPress article on WordPress.org with a fine tooth comb and paying particular attention to this section: http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress#File_Permissions which recommends a mixture of 755 and 644.

You might want to run recursive changes (to make sure they echo out to the folders beneath), and then pop something like WordPress Firewall 2 on as a security plugin.

Ultimately, the shared hosting environment can only be secured to a certain level (because it's shared) - but both of those are a good start.

Upvotes: 1

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