How to change file permissions

In order to change the permission of a file, the first thing you need to do is to login to your cPanel. From the main page, please select the File Manager icon. A new window will open, and the files and folders, contained in your web space will be listed in alphabetical order.

To change a file's permissions, please click on the file name. In the top right corner of the page a list of options will appear. When you click the Change Permissions link, this list will be substituted with a table with 9 checkboxes.

Checking/unchecking each of the boxes will allow/disallow a single user or a group to do one of the three actions possible – read (view) a file, write (modify), or execute it. To apply any modifications you need to click the Change button.

Changing the permission status will affect the number at the bottom of the table. If you would like to, you can also set the numbers by directly replacing them with the desired values. Please click the Change button to save your settings.

Upon completing the operation, cPanel will show a message similar to the one below to confirm changes have been saved.

Set permissions on file.txt -> 0644

/home/username/www

The message contains the name of the file that has been modified, the new permission set, and the system path on the hosting server.

Lithium Hosting recommends that you do not change file permissions to 777 unless this is required for scripts already installed to function properly.

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