Joomla FTP file permission problem with templates & extensions.

04 May, 2013 by Tom Elliott

I finally managed to solve various issues with Joomla file permissions when trying to make FTP alterations to extensions, templates or modules. This is on a Linux setup running Joomla 2.5.

These file permission issues included:
– Unable to delete files and folders using FTP
– Unable to CHMOD to set file permissions
– Occasional corrupt installation or uninstallation when trying to delete modules & templates
– Templates not installing correctly and problems with FTP uploading to new template folders.
– Not being able to overwrite Extensions, plugins and modules via FTP that were installed from extension manager

In many cases, these issues will be due to the fact there are essentially two different types of server user groups that have ownership and permission levels over Joomla files and folders. There’s the main website FTP user, that you use to upload files and folders and the ‘apache’ server user and user group used by Joomla by default if FTP details are not setup within Joomla.

To fix all these Joomla file & FTP permission issues above, all I had to do was enter FTP details in Joomla. Once logged in to Joomla administration interface, select ‘global configuration’ from the main menu under ‘site’. Select server and enter the same FTP details you use to upload to the site in the FTP settings panel.

Your Joomla install should now be using the same FTP user details to set file permissions whenever extensions, templates or modules are installed which should eliminate similar these FTP and file permission conflicts.