File Permissions on config.php keep reventing to 400

Steve_Beeston · November 22, 2017, 12:08pm

Quite suddenly, and now regularly, the file permissions on config.php keep changing to 400. I have to keep changing the permissions back to 644 using Filezilla.

Any suggestions as to what might be causing this?

I’m using shared hosting.

tflidd · November 25, 2017, 2:32pm

I only found one reference that sets the permissions to 640:

github.com

nextcloud/server/blob/da6c2c9da1721de7aa05b15af1356e3511069980/lib/private/Config.php#L244


		// Create a php file ...
		$content = "<?php\n";
		$content .= '$CONFIG = ';
		$content .= var_export($this->cache, true);
		$content .= ";\n";


		touch ($this->configFilePath);
		$filePointer = fopen($this->configFilePath, 'r+');


		// Prevent others not to read the config
		chmod($this->configFilePath, 0640);


		// File does not exist, this can happen when doing a fresh install
		if(!is_resource ($filePointer)) {
			// TODO fix this via DI once it is very clear that this doesn't cause side effects due to initialization order
			// currently this breaks app routes but also could have other side effects especially during setup and exception handling
			$url = \OC::$server->getURLGenerator()->linkToDocs('admin-dir_permissions');
			throw new HintException(
				"Can't write into config directory!",
				'This can usually be fixed by giving the webserver write access to the config directory. See ' . $url);
		}

What system are you using? Is this shared hosting?

Steve_Beeston · November 26, 2017, 12:49am

Yes, it’s shared hosting (I did mention this in my initial post

I suspect (but have no evidence) that this might be a cron job that the hosting company is running. The file permissions seem to change daily around 2am to 0400. I am unable to change the permissions back to 640 via Filezilla or the cPanel file manager overnight, but during the day I can do this, which suggests the file is locked by something overnight.

Poss related, I notice that Wordpress installations config.phg file permissions on the same account are set to 400, but that WP doesn’t flag this up as an issue as it doesn’t need to write to config.php?

tflidd · November 26, 2017, 4:07pm

You can check the cronjobs on your system, it is perhaps cPanel? If you suspect the provider, you need to ask them directly, they have perhaps reasons to fix the permissions.

Steve_Beeston · November 26, 2017, 5:48pm

The hosting provider is as mystified as I am.