Hey i logged in to check my server today and came across a problem. The permissions on one of my cpanel user's are all messed up. Whenever i browse /user/public_html it won't let me make any changes to any of the files or folders. Has anyone else had this problem and if so how did you fix it? I didn't make any changes or anything it just randomly happened. Also can't chmod any of the files too and a reboot didn't help either. Thanks for the help.

Hello,

Can you please copy and paste the error messages, while trying to change the permission of the folders and file you wanted.

Well it simply says permission denied when logged in as the problem user via ftp. If i sftp in via root though i can make changes etc though in the public_html folder. Really stumped here cause i had the same problem with another account also.

Is that account using some php script that upload or create files, is PHP running as Server API or suPHP.

Like when you have PHP running as Server API, and have Joomla on an account any file uploaded or created through it will be owned by nobody, hence user will get permission denied message using FTP as user.

If you could get into the root via ftp, you could take alook at the file permissions and maybe they have changed, its happened to me before and it wouldnt let me delete anything, make sure the permissions are 755

Is that account using some php script that upload or create files, is PHP running as Server API or suPHP.

Like when you have PHP running as Server API, and have Joomla on an account any file uploaded or created through it will be owned by nobody, hence user will get permission denied message using FTP as user.
It uses a cgi script to upload files. But doesn't make sense why the whole public_html folder would go A wall. I also tried chown to username.nobody and that didn't work either.

If you could get into the root via ftp, you could take alook at the file permissions and maybe they have changed, its happened to me before and it wouldnt let me delete anything, make sure the permissions are 755
I can chmod all the files when logged in as root in /home/user/public_html but when i login as the user via ftp it won't let me.

It uses a cgi script to upload files. But doesn't make sense why the whole public_html folder would go A wall. I also tried chown to username.nobody and that didn't work either.

You mean perl CGI?

And does that also changes the permission on public_html folder or on folders/files within public_html?

Also when the permissions are altered who is the owner, user or nobody or some else?

You mean perl CGI?

And does that also changes the permission on public_html folder or on folders/files within public_html?

Also when the permissions are altered who is the owner, user or nobody or some else?
I'm currently running chown on the user's whole directory so that includes public_html. Yea perl CGI sorry about that. Not sure, permissions were initially modified by an install script so i guess that would have todo with apache? The folders i was testing were changed when i was logged in as root though, the user can't chmod any files or create folders. I get permission_denied in coreftp.

User can not can not modify CHMOD if the files/folders are not owned by the user, it seems that your CGI script is altering the ownership, most probably to nobody as Apache runs as nobody.

Hello,

I think you installed some modules or components for your CMS (Joomla) and they get nobody:nobody user permissions.

After that your ftp user cant change or delete that files / folders.

Need to contact administrator for that server (root user) and tell him to CHOWN that files for your user.

The best solution would be to have the root to change the user for module. Ideally check if the script is designed to change the user to nobody.

Thanks all for the help. Ended up i had quota's set up wrong and i was out of space on the raid array. Deleted some files and all's back to normal.