What is FTP CHMOD/chmod/Change Mode?!

Has someone asked you to chmod a directory or file to 666 or 664 (three-digit octal) and you have no clue what this means? Well, take a second to read this post and I’ll explain a bit of what I know about Change Mode, Chmod and CHMOD (for your information these are all the same thing).

To begin, let me say that this article will be discussing Change Mode in terms of file and directory permissions using file transfer protocol programs. Personally, I use FireFTP and Core FTP as my File Transfer Protocol Systems. Both make is very easy to connect and chmod any file or directory. FireFTP is built-in to Firefox, as an added extra benefit.

CHMOD in terms of FTP

So I don’t claim to be any genius with FTP, so I’m speaking here in terms of my own experience with Change Mode.  I’m a web designer and my experience with Change Mode has been through FTP programs. Have you noticed when using your ftp program that each file/directory have multiple permission values.  This is because there are multiple ways to set permissions.

File and Directory Permissions Symbolic Notation

R: Changes the modes of directories and files recursively

V: Verbose mode; lists all files as they are being processed

Here are some common Symbolic notation:

0 — no permission

1 –x execute

2 -w- write

3 -wx write and execute

4 r– read

5 r-x read and execute

6 rw- read and write

7 rwx read, write and execute

-rwxr-xr-x is 755.
-rw-rw-r– equal 664 in three-digit octal.
-r-x—— is represented as 500

Octal numbers

CHMOD octal numbers are from what I understand another way of setting read/write/execute permissions on a file or directory. I have seen them in both 3 and 4 digits.

CHMOD a File or Directory

Now that you have read my brief description into changing the permission of files using Change Mode (or CHMOD) it’s time to fire up your favorite FTP program and try for yourself.

To view this for yourself:

1. Open your favorite File Transfer Protocol Program


2. Connect to a web server


3. Right-click on a document or directory that isn’t important if you play around with the permissions (like a image)


4. You will see numbers similar to the images below…

CHMOD 664

-rw-r-r-

CHMOD 755

-rwxr-xr-x-

CHMOD 666

-rw-rw-rw-

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