Hi,

If i use the command chmod o+w to change permissions of a web folder/file eg httpdocs or index.html does this make that particular file/folder under a security threat?

Possibly. But the question is, what are you trying to do? Because there is probably a better way to do it.

OK here is the scenario.

Its a webserver running Vhosts. I manage all my domains using Plesk.
When i create a domain and host the website i create a FTP username and password
for the domain owner (also done in plesk)
The domain owner can login with out a problem and they login to their home folder which
would be

/var/www/vhosts/domain.com/

now when the domain owner tries to upload their website into

/var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs

they get permission errors, that they cannot add files or make changes to the folder.
even to a file within the folder eg

/var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/index.html

when i do

chmod o+w /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/
or
chmod o+w /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/index.html

it seems to fix the issue, but i am afrain it could be a security risk

You need to make sure that /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs is owned by the domain owner and their user has write permission. You also needto make sure that the user your Web server runs as has read permission (so it can serve the folder). The chmod o+w command makes the directory writeable by other (anyone not the owner/group of the file, though the owner/group probably can write to it too but their permissions are handled separately).

I would suggest googling around for a good tutorial on Unix permissions. There's no reason to make a directory world writeable just so one user can put files into it.

Hi,

Did abit of research and one of the docs i read suggested
chod 0755

Any warnings before using it?

That will give the directory owner rwx permissions, the group r-x permissions, and all others also r-x permissions./ Depending on whether or not /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs has correct ownerdship and group ownership this may or may not have the effect you want.

Can you do "ls -ld /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs" (no quotes) and tell us which user is supposed to be allowed to write into the directory?

this is for the first domain

drwxr-xr-x 5 user1 psaserv 4096 Mar 5 17:01 /var/www/vhosts/domain1.com/httpdocs/ (made the chmod o+w changes then later did chmod 0755 to test)

drwxr-x--- 4 user2 psaserv 4096 Feb 23 01:04 /var/www/vhosts/domain2.com/httpdocs/ (this is the other domain, user2 cannot make changes)

When command groups is typed, psaserv is not shown