ftp uploaded files - errors 403 and 404

Evening all,

I have a problem accessing files I've uploaded through ftp. I'm new to using any kind of an internet server really so I'm not sure whether I'm doing something wrong, or whether there is a logical explanation for this, so please bear with me :-) A browse on the wiki and a forum search haven't turned up anything.

I've created an ftp-only account for a friend to use and assigned him his own domain (or is it a subdomain?) - http://ziroc.dreamhosters.com

It looks like the DNS changes have now propogated through, since travelling to the above link displays an index of files inside. I can access through ftp either directly to his domain, or through the host machine with no problems. I can upload and download files fine, and they are reflected in the index of files in the directory.

For example, going to the above URL, you should be able to see a 'test.txt' file.

Yet when I try to visit the file directly, I get the following error:

In reply to:

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Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /test.txt on this server.


Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

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If anyone could shed some light on what's happening it would be much appreciated!

Cheers

View the properties of that folder and see if all users is readable.(chmod is another term for what I mean).
Silk

Thanks for the reply silkrooster - it's definitely a permissions issue, so thanks for pointing me in that direction.

However, I'm still a bit confused - for some reason, read access isn't sufficient for this. After a bit of trial and error, it appears that I can only get error free access when permissions on the directory are set to 777! This seems a tad..erm..excessive!

For example, currently the situation is this:

In reply to:

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drwxrw-r-- 2 ziroc pg545727 4096 2006-06-07 15:12 ziroc.dreamhosters.com

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and I have no access to the files over my browser. The ftp programme can access the folder, but only after I'd enabled writing for group users (for some reason, 764 is not enough).

Chmod 777 however makes the files readable as you would expect.

So in a sense, it's fixed, but I would love to know why the permissions have to be so extensive, when you would think a web browser only needs read access to a file/folder to display it...any ideas?

Thanks again :-)

Generally, you probably want 755 or 775 for directories like your domain or subdomain, and executable scripts, and 644 or 664 for files like web pages.

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Unix_File_Permissions_Cookbook#Recipe:_Web_Site

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Unix_File_Permissions

What I Like About

Great links! I hadn't realised that execute permission is needed to read the contents of a directory - it's all working fine now.

Thank-you both for your help :-)