How to change the permissions of a file or a folder

Sometimes when you install a script manually, you would see an instruction "change the permissions of file.php to 666", for example. Those permissions are associated with the read, write and execute rights that the file owner, group members and everybody else has for that file. There are several ways to change the permissions of a file or a folder - through the File Manager section, SSH, or through an FTP client, such as FileZilla.

If you go to the File Manager section of the Web Hosting Control Panel (Site Management > File Manager), you will see a column "Permissions". There is a value for every file or folder in your account, with default values 644 for files and 755 for folders. If you want to change the permissions of a particular file or folder, simply click on the value that you see for that file or folder. A drop-down menu will appear and you will be able to choose the new value.

If you want to change the permissions of multiple files or foldes, you have to select them first, then choose the value you need from the Permissions drop-down menu located at the top and at the bottom of the File Manager section. Click on the Change button for the changes to take effect.

An alternative to using our File Manager tool would be changing the file permissions using an FTP client. That option would also give you the opportunity to change the permissions of all subdirectories and files within a folder recursively.

We recommend FileZilla, a freeware FTP client. Here is how you can change the permissions using that client:

First, connect to your account on the server via FTP to see a list of all the files and folders that you have. To change the permissions, right-click on a file and choose the File Attributes option. You can type a numeric value or choose the Read/Write/Execute permissions marking the checkboxes. If you choose the File Attributes option when you right-click a folder, you will see an extra option - Recurse into subdirectories. You can change the permissions of all the files, all the folders, or both, as long as they are located in the folder you have just clicked on.

Last, but not least, you can change the permissions via Secure Shell (SSH) if it is active for your account. The command is "chmod number filename" - for example, "chmod 644 example.php". For additional details about SSH - how to activate and use it, refer to this article: What is SSH, how do I activate and use SSH?