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Showing posts from May, 2017

Secure web server permissions that just work

I have been doing web development since, well, web development basically began. And I've used a wide range of hosts. Since I don't see anyone stating answers succinctly and definitively anywhere, it is time to write a solution to the question on everyone's mind: What are the permissions that I should set for web server directories and files? The first step is to identify the user that the web server will access files with/run under. For example, many Linux distributions set up 'www-data' as the user. I'll be focusing mostly on Linux as it powers about 66% of the Interwebs, but Windows Server users can benefit too. It is important to get your setup correct from the very beginning. Propagating permissions down the website tree as new directories and files are created is critical to maintaining sanity. Knowing who created a specific file or directory is also important when working in a team. As always, if you can't trust other users who might have a