Co-op will lose Powweb sites

My hosting site powweb site decided to make a small change to their FTP servers.

and their solution to webmasters who need to write to a file.

Well it was fun while it lasted.

 

They will lose a ton of business.... many sites require the permissions.

 

Looks like they are only blocking chmod from ftp, php chmod still works

$file = "ad_network_ads_467.txt";

if (! chmod($file, 0666)) {
    echo  ("Unable to change file permissions");
}

PHP:

 

Why on earth would a hosting company do this?

 

Very very bad move by Powweb!

 

Screw them, just switch to another host. There are as much hosting companies out there as my hair.

 

Absolute rubbish...Setting write permissions to a text file poses absolutely no security threat.

They will lose a huge percentage of their customers because of this. The ironic part is the ones they will lose will be the most profitable...Those that resell services as any client is going to need this function.

One of th most moronic moves I have seen in a while

 

That's one of the most absurd things i've ever heard of.

 

Because with those permisions anyone else on the server can write to the files.

Do they run suexec and suphpexec by chance? If so you can get by without setting them that way.

 

But where is the security risk with writing to .txt files?

 

They exist... but that is not the full point. Nothing limits the chmod to text files, also nothing limits what you put in a file called .txt to be text only.

 

I did not know that fish had hair . I have a few issues with powweb's hosting service, mostly with DDOS attacks on the cluster that my site is on. I will be changing my hosting service after my 1 year agreement is over, I think I have 6 months left on it.

 

Can you not get out of your agreement due to this? Personally, I would fight to get out if it was me as that is a major change in service (and an extraordinary one at that).

Imagine if your host said they no longer support php...Surely they couldn't hold you to the contract?

 

I had the same problem with 3-4 of my hosts. They see it as a security issue for anyone on the server.

It's easy to fix - just make permissions 755 instead of 666. This works fine for me.

 

That's nuts! Forum software will not work without a few folders/files set to 777. WTF are they thinking?

 

Are you sure they are not also using suexec so 770 works just fine?