Newcomers to CGI may not be familiar with the unix 'chmod' command. This document does not hope to explain to you what 'chmod' does or why you need to do it. It just seeks to show you visually what the Discus setup instructions mean when they tell you to set permissions on files to 0755 (rwxr-xr-x) or 0777 (rwxrwxrwx).

We'll cover two common FTP programs, WS_FTP and CuteFTP. The Macintosh program, Fetch, has a permission changing interface similar to WS_FTP. Your FTP program, even if it's not one of the programs we mentioned here, probably has a similar interface. If you don't have an FTP program that can change unix permissions, download WS_FTP from a TUCOWS mirror near you.

With WS_FTP, navigate the "remote" directory to the directory that contains the file for which you need to set permissions. First, left-click on the file that will have its permissions changed to highlight the file. Then, right-click on the file that will have its permissions changed. From the menu, select "chmod (UNIX)." SHOW ME HOW

This will bring up a window allowing you to specify unix permissions. Here are the two permissions that the Discus setup instructions will require you to set:

With more recent versions of WS_FTP, you can select multiple files and then right-click for the chmod command. This will save you a lot of time when setting permissions on multiple files.

To change permissions on a directory itself, as you are instructed to do, you can left-click (single click) on the folder icon itself, and then right-click as usual.

If you are concerned about the permissions displayed in the dialog box, read this article.

With CuteFTP, navigate the "remote" directory to the directory that contains the file for which you need to set permissions. First, left-click on the file that will have its permissions changed to highlight the file. Then, right-click on the file that will have its permissions changed. From the menu, select "Change File Attributes." SHOW ME HOW

This will bring up a window allowing you to specify unix permissions. Here are the two permissions that the Discus setup instructions will require you to set:

Although there are numerous FTP programs out there, most of them work similarly. You can easily see the correlation between the WS_FTP interface and the CuteFTP interface for specification of permissions. The Fetch program for the Macintosh, although not specifically shown here, works similar to these programs, as do many other FTP programs.

If you have additional questions relating to setting of permissions, please contact the maker of your FTP program and/or your web host.