configuration.php permissions keep changing to 444 [solved]

[nate206]

I'm using Joomla 1.7.4 at the moment. Im testing the 2.5 version on my development server. I noticed the configuration.php permissions keep changing to 444 whenever I make a change in the global configuration area. Is this normal? Is Joomla doing this for security reasons? I dont mind the removal of the write permissions I would just rather they not be 444. Im using godaddy shared hosting and the php scripts are run as the ftp user. So i would rather the configuration.php be something like 640 removing ALL permissions for the other user. Just annoying that it keeps reverting to 444. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[leolam]

Normal behavior. If you change something in configuration.php through ftp you can set permissions in ftp to 644 and they should stay than on 644

Leo

[nate206]

Thanks alot! You answered my question perfectly.

[mandville]

Is this now to be marked as solved ?

[nate206]

Sorry, yes you can mark this as solved.

[bluesteam]

Sorry for raising an old thread but how is this marked as solved? Whenever I edit any settings, it changes the permissions to 444 but then if you go in to "System Information" -> "Directory Permissions" it complains that the file is Unwritable so changing it back to 644 so that it is writable again makes joomla happy again and then change a setting and joomla is unhappy again.

What am I missing?

[nate206]

I AM able to make changes through the Joomla global configuration menu without having to re-set the write permission on the config.php file everytime. I guess Joomla does that automatically. Configuration.php shouldn't be writable and I think it's just a security thing. Im using 2.5 Joomla. Im also NOT using the FTP layer. I would rather it revert to something like 640 or 440 rather than 444 since I dont want any permissions in the other category but I dont change the php too often anyway. I would imagine not all hosts would like 640 on the config.php but maybe Im wrong.

[PhilD]

I AM able to make changes through the Joomla global configuration menu without having to re-set the write permission on the config.php file everytime. I guess Joomla does that automatically. Configuration.php shouldn't be writable and I think it's just a security thing. Im using 2.5 Joomla. Im also NOT using the FTP layer. I would rather it revert to something like 640 or 440 rather than 444 since I dont want any permissions in the other category but I dont change the php too often anyway. I would imagine not all hosts would like 640 on the config.php but maybe Im wrong.

Normal server operations (unless using php as an apache module) are file permissions are set to 644 and the files are owned by you. Most servers now run php as cgi or an equivalent and use some version of 'su' to allow the httpd process to run properly without ownership and thus permission issues.

Normal servers set up their masks to provide 644 on files which is the standard permission level when creating files.

[edit: was pointed out what I originally said was wrong. I think the following is basically correct now.]
When you edit the configuration file through the Joomla admin screens and save the edits, Joomla will delete the configuration.php file which it can do. Joomla will then ask the server to create a new file that it can populate with the config data. Once this is done Joomla will set the permissions on this file to 444.

When editing the configuration file offline by downloading with an ftp program, one can download the file when it is set to 444 (you can even delete it if you want), but you have to change the permissions of the file on the server to 644 before uploading and overwriting the file on the server with your locally edited version. failure to do this will result in an failed transfer error within your ftp program. The file will not be transferred to the server and the file on the server will not be overwritten.