FTP Site Permissions for Dummies

FTP access permissions

We don't know about everyone, but we rather suspect that if someone needs information, he or she would prefer to get the answer from a person who already knew it instead of having to look it up. A few of our staffers are old enough to remember calling the reference desk at the local library looking for information, but in that case 1) you were speaking to a trained researcher and 2) that researcher read you the information written by an authority. Unfortunately, neither 1 nor 2 is the case in most of content farm rubbish we expose here. Take, for instance, the case of Tiesha Whatley who told the readers of eHow.com "How to Change Permissions to an FTP Site."¹

We wonder: with a "BS in English" (which isn't what she says at LinkedIn...) and a background as a wedding planner, what does she know about FTP? We suspect that Whatley didn't even know what the initials FTP stand for (it's "file transfer protocol") when she wrote this; she still may not. You can tell from her introduction, which is only barely reworded from a user's manual or online tutorial:

"Changing permissions on an FTP site happens at three different levels... Within those three levels, there are three other levels of permissions to give: read, write and execute." For what it's worth, those in the know generally call those "rights," not "permissions" – kudos to Roget... Besides, nobody but the sysadmin ever has complete site access unless some amateur screws up royally. Tiesha goes on to explain how to set permissions using a package called CPanel and something she thinks is generic "FTP software." According to Whatley, to change site permission you should

"Open the software program and connect to your server. This is done by using the FTP username and password that you set up through the CPanel. Once connected, you will see a list of all of your files and directories on the right side of the program.

Right-click on a file or directory. Choose 'Change Permission.' Set the permission to the file or directory by selecting or deselecting the checks from the 'Read,' 'Write' and 'Execute' boxes. "

The steps are probably right, at least for Windows computers – we don't have access to CPanel to check the details and we don't want to go through the hassle of finding the information in their online FAQs. But is hers the best answer? we think not.
We see one problem with Whatley's "solution," but it's pretty major: how do you do this if you're a small-fry webmaster who isn't paying hundreds of dollars per year to license CPanel? If Tiesha had any idea what she was talking about, she'd have known that anyone with basic UNIX skills can change permissions on an FTP site with the chmod command, and that utility's built-in and therefore free. Whatley obviously didn't know that, but she attempted an answer anyway – and that's why she's picking up her third Dumbass of the Day award this month alone.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was    ehow.com/how_4842744_change-permissions-ftp-site.html

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