Tracking changes to folder permissions

verdon

• June 25, 2025 18:19

I am experiencing changes to folder permissions within some client's public_html folders. It seems to randomly change some (or maybe all) folders under public_html recursively from 755 to 775 which causes 500 errors. Would this be logged somewhere so I can determine what is doing it? These are all Wordpress sites, all pretty much the same, all one developer. I normally might have guessed a file transfer or a restored backup or some such thing, but that is definitely not the case. I'm not sure where to start.

• 

  verdon

  • June 25, 2025 18:20

  I should say all file and folder ownerships are remaining correct, files are remaining at 644, just the folders.

  0
• 

  William Del Piero cPanel Staff

  • June 26, 2025 16:43

  Hi,

   

  If your server isn't a VPS you can monitor unintended file or permission changes with auditd. With that said, if your server is a VPS, then you would need to have access to the host node in order to use auditd. We have documentation below on how-to use this:

   

  How to investigate unintended file modifications

   

  As far as I'm aware, cPanel could be responsible for modifying public_html's permission if changes have been made to the File Protect setting in WHM > Tweak Settings, but cPanel shouldn't be responsible for modifying permissions on the folders recursively under public_html unless there was user intervention such as an backup restoration.

  0
• 

  verdon

  • June 27, 2025 02:42

  Not a VPS. Thanks for this information. I'll go over it tomorrow.

  0

Please sign in to leave a comment.