When managing a website or a web app, it’s important to give the right permissions to the right users. Otherwise, there’s a high security cost to be paid. If you’ve built your website on Plesk Onyx 12, you should know how to set and change the permissions. It can be easily done from the control panel. You can see the permission status for each file and directory in the file explorer’s Permission column. There are three columns, and each column tells us the following:
First column - The abilities of the owner to modify the files/directory
Second column - The abilities of the user group, file, or directory to make the modification
Third column - The abilities of other users and everyone visiting the site to modify the file or directory
You’ll notice the permission column has three sets of symbols like rwx or rwx r and so on. R means permission to read, W means permission to write, and X means permission to execute. With that said, let’s see how you can change permissions for each file or directory. You can do that in two ways: by Plesk GUI and Plesk Command Line. We’ll first look at Plesk GUI.
Set and Change Permission Using Plesk GUI
If you want to work with the Graphical User Interface, here are the steps to follow:
Visit the URL of your control panel
On the left, click on the ‘Domains’ tab
From the list, select the domain you want to tweak the permissions for
Then, click on the tab that reads ‘Websites and Domains’
Then, click on ‘File Manager’
Then, click on ‘root’ of the directory
Scroll till you come across ‘httpdocs’and then right-click on root of the directory. It will open up a context menu
From the menu list, tap on ‘Change Permissions’
Once the page loads, ensure that users who are supposed to make changes to the file or directory have all the permissions. For this, click on the user (it could be the root), and then tick on the ‘Full Control’ box in the right sidebar. Review the permission for other users at other places and make necessary changes
Now go into ‘Tools and Settings’ and click on ‘Restart Server’ which would restart the server
Changing Permission Using Plesk Command Line
If you prefer using the command line instead of GUI, then here are the steps you need to follow:
Open Plesk Repair Tool
Run scans to check for issues and then select the issues you want to fix
Then run the following command in the CLI:
Plesk repair all
Select the default values to allow fixes of your server
And that’s done.
Once done, it’s important to keep the server updated and upgrade whenever a new version of a software is made avaiable. So periodically, run the following commands:
sudo apt-get upgrades
sudo apt-get updates
Also, keep updating the permissions and check the server’s access logs. If you find any discrepancies, inform the hosting provider or take necessary precautions.
First column - The abilities of the owner to modify the files/directory
Second column - The abilities of the user group, file, or directory to make the modification
Third column - The abilities of other users and everyone visiting the site to modify the file or directory
You’ll notice the permission column has three sets of symbols like rwx or rwx r and so on. R means permission to read, W means permission to write, and X means permission to execute. With that said, let’s see how you can change permissions for each file or directory. You can do that in two ways: by Plesk GUI and Plesk Command Line. We’ll first look at Plesk GUI.
Set and Change Permission Using Plesk GUI
If you want to work with the Graphical User Interface, here are the steps to follow:
Visit the URL of your control panel
On the left, click on the ‘Domains’ tab
From the list, select the domain you want to tweak the permissions for
Then, click on the tab that reads ‘Websites and Domains’
Then, click on ‘File Manager’
Then, click on ‘root’ of the directory
Scroll till you come across ‘httpdocs’and then right-click on root of the directory. It will open up a context menu
From the menu list, tap on ‘Change Permissions’
Once the page loads, ensure that users who are supposed to make changes to the file or directory have all the permissions. For this, click on the user (it could be the root), and then tick on the ‘Full Control’ box in the right sidebar. Review the permission for other users at other places and make necessary changes
Now go into ‘Tools and Settings’ and click on ‘Restart Server’ which would restart the server
Changing Permission Using Plesk Command Line
If you prefer using the command line instead of GUI, then here are the steps you need to follow:
Open Plesk Repair Tool
Run scans to check for issues and then select the issues you want to fix
Then run the following command in the CLI:
Plesk repair all
Select the default values to allow fixes of your server
And that’s done.
Once done, it’s important to keep the server updated and upgrade whenever a new version of a software is made avaiable. So periodically, run the following commands:
sudo apt-get upgrades
sudo apt-get updates
Also, keep updating the permissions and check the server’s access logs. If you find any discrepancies, inform the hosting provider or take necessary precautions.
