Access permisions ?!?!?!?

[Nokia]

Hi all,

I have recently updated my web site using MS frontpage, on my site I have a form for people to send me their contact details etc, I origionally wanted the results of this form to be emailed to me, but I soon gave up on that idea when I realized I didnt have a scoobies how to do it.

Instead i eventually managed to get it to save to a file on the web server I use, however when I try to view the contents of this file it get the old "you do not have permision to access this file".

I emailed my web hosting company (web mania) for help but they kinda didnt help me very much, so I sent them a shitty email telling them so!

They replied with this :

"Request you to check the pemissions of the folder and file in consideration...
Note that the the permissions to the folder and the file should be 755."

I asked them what the hell this means, but for some strange reason they didnt bothe replying to me.

Could any one enlighten me as to what this means, obviously I have to change the access permissions the 755, but does anyone know how??

Thanks a lot in advance!

[MrLinus]

Sounds like the chmod command. But 755 (rwxr-xr-x) means that you have read, write, execute for you as the user, read and execute for people that are part of your group and read and execute for everyone else. It's a little too permission because it allows others to browser your directories. Personally, I set my directories to 701 (rwx-----x) which means I have full access, others in my group have no access and the rest of the world can only go into the directory but not see a listing of files. This doesn't preclude them from reading contents of files (the purpose of the HTML in the first place). Files will have permissions of 744 (rwxr--r--).

So the server you are hosting on sounds like a *nix variant and you'll need to set the permission via SSH or FTP (some FTPs have the ability to set permissions I've noticed). If you SSH, you'll need to do something like chmod 701 /my/web/directory (replacing /my/web/directory with the actual path of your directory). Graphical FTPs will probably have something in the menu to change permissions on the remote directory.

Hope that helps.

[moxnix]

If you want your visitors to be able to e-mail you, then using an autoresponder is one of the best ways. You can google them and find a few free ones that are easy to set up.
What this does, is to provide a form for them to fill out and then automatically sends them a e-mail (as in a thank you note), and sends the form contents to your email.
Google search for "autoresponder free" delivers this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=&cat...responder+free

[Nokia]

hey thanks folks.
Msmittens- I emailed them back saying what you said about allowing r-rw-x for all, they emailed me back basically saying tough **** thats the way i gotta do it! Thanks for letting me know that though as I would have done as they said without realizing exactly what i had just done

I tried a few of the autoresponders moxnix - your right they are a simple way to do it but i had a bit of a drama trying to cut and paste the HTML into my site, and ended up trashing it and having to start the whole thing from scratch!

Good thing i did though, its a lot better now and i stumbled upon who to make the details of the form be emailed to me!

Web design just aint my bag!!

Thanks again guys and gals!

[MrLinus]

I'd suggest a new web hosting company then. They obviously don't seem to understand the issue with allowing people access to directories (see all files means inforrmation leakage).

[Nokia]

I was thinking that but for £20 per year its about the level I epected!

I certainly wouldnt reccomend www.web-mania.com to any of my friends though!

[Raion]

Well, I see that it has Full FTP access most FTP clients have a CHMOD option where it allows you to set the permissions (I know CuteFTP does) you should try that.

[Nokia]

yep i know, but if they are reccommending giving the "_private" folder in frontpage 755 access they may not have a clue what their on about.

It also has full telnet access to the entire server! which was how I changed the access permissions before I realized what 755 actualy meant.