Penn Engineering CETS Answers

How do I fix the permissions on my html directory?

Using the Account Management Site

You can fix the permissions on your html directory using the Accounts Management Website.

Login to http://www.seas.upenn.edu/accounts, and click on the link "Manage Web Page". Then click on the Continue button to fix the permissions on your html directory on Eniac. This will fix your html directory permissions. If you don't have an html directory created yet, this will create one for you and set all the permissions correctly. (Note: Begining in April 2005, all new SEAS accounts come with an html directory set correctly.)

Using Filezilla

You can also set permissions using the FTP program, Filezilla. More details.

Using UNIX

The easiest way to fix the permissions on your html directory is to run the command

% lockhome
This will make all your html files readable, all your html directories readable and executable, your home directory executable, and all of your other files and directories private.

If you want to do it yourself, you can use

% chmod a+x ~
% chmod -R a+rx ~/html
The downside of this is that it makes all of the documents on your web site executable. This doesn't make a difference in terms of the web or security, but it will make people (and the system) think that these are programs that can be run.

Another way which may be more preferable is

% chmod a+x ~
% find ~/html -type d -print | xarge chmod a+rx
% find ~/html -type f -print | xarge chmod a+r
This will make all of your directories executable and writable, and will make your documents readable (but not executable).

© Computing and Educational Technology Services cets@seas.upenn.edu 215.898.4707