How to limit access to an FTP folder?

Question

I'm using a shared webserver on which I can manage FTP accounts. I'm wondering how to set access restrictions a folder,

Say I have a file in:

www.somepage.com/ftp/import/

which is named someData.txt

Why is it that I can access this file by hitting:

www.somepage.com/ftp/import/someData.txt

If the file is just lying there, why make an FTP user with login/password to access it. If I check the file restrictions, public has read/write/execute/sticky, so I don't understand why I can just pull the fill by hitting it's URL.

Answer 1

Article on permissions

Try using chmod to change the permissions on your files/folders on the server through command line/terminal. It seems like your permissions are currently set to 777 which allows anyone to do anything.

• 7 allow user to read/write/execute
• 7 allow group to read/write/execute
• 7 allow world to read/write/execute

You would probably want to use something like 770 which will prevent anyone except the user and groups doing anything to the files and folders. These permissions are pretty important for security as you could be the victim of an attack if they aren't set properly.