Installation of Packages Causes Directory Permissions to Change

[stormiecub]

I've been fighting with SMF all evening long, and I'm not sure what's going on. I have an adult roleplay forum which is located here. There's not a lot of material on it yet, it's just the domain that is potentially offensive.

Anyway, now that I have a working copy of the software installed with compatible php version, I've run into a new problem.

When attempting to install a package through the package manager, the directory permissions change automatically when I click "install." This causes my entire forum to run a 500 Internal Server error, because the main directory permissions have been changed to 777.

I have no logical explanation for why this might be and am currently chatting with my host to try to get help for this issue in addition to the previous issue.

Anybody know what's going on here?

[Kindred]

Smf is unable to write the files with whatever their standard chmod permissions are... So it tries to assign them writable permissions of 777.  Since your host won't permit that, it causes an error...

The problem lies with how your host has configured php...  The system does not have permissions to write to files at whatever chmod you currently have set (I assume 755/644)

[stormiecub]

The host says that the software is the issue. I'm really pissed off (not at you, forgive me).

I just spent over an hour waiting to get into a chat with them only to be told that the software is the problem. I'm not really sure how that can be the case, since I've been working with SMF for about five years without having any problems with the software at all. This has become the most tremendous hassle that I'm considering migrating to a different server.

Is there anything -- that you know of -- that I can do about this other than to direct them to this thread?

[Kindred]

Well, they are both right and wrong.
Smf IS the cause of the issue...   Because it needs write permission to install the mod.

However, the root cause is your host's configuration which requires smf to apply 777/666 chmod in order to get that writable permission.

You could TRY going in and setting all directories to 775 and all files to 664 and see if that works...  But I suspect that the host has installed php as either an anonymous user or as apache... Which is different from the account user used to create the files in the first place.

[stormiecub]

I've already tried to change the directory and file permissions -- that didn't work. When I go to install a package, it changes those settings to 777, hence the 500 Internal Service erro.

Just now got back in with Host Gator. It seems that the person I'm speaking to may be helpful as she's at least friendly. Cross your fingers for me, because I'm not tech savvy at all!

[Kindred]

Ugh. Host gator...   Not the worst, but not one that I would ever use...

[stormiecub]

I've passed the thread on to the technician I'm speaking with right now. So far she's been helpful, but SMF is doing something I've never seen it do before on package installation.

[Kindred]

Right... Smf uses FTP chmod to set permissions

[stormiecub]

Okay, I've never seen this before, so it's new to me.

But I have progress!

Now I'm getting an SMF error instead of a 500 Internal Server error!

"You cannot download or install new packages because the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable!"

It is writable because I made it writable in the FTP, but this is better than what I was getting!

[stormiecub]

I have an update to this issue. Something has changed and now I get this error when attempting to install:

You cannot download or install new packages because the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable!

I've manually changed the permissions on the directory and files in the Packages folder, and it's still giving me this error. I want to cry. This has robbed me of two days of my life that I can't get back.

What do I need to do?

ETA: I've created the "temp" folder with 0777 permissions and that didn't help. I just went back to the previous problem with the 500 Internal Server errors, and now I'm back to square one.

[stormiecub]

Alright! I got this resolved by using a previous version of SMF. It would appear that this is a security loophole with the software itself that needs to be corrected. It may only have issues with HostGator, but hey, I've managed to do okay with backtracking a version and now everything is working!

[Kindred]

what version did you install?

I don't recall any specific security issues related to file permissions in and of the 2.0 line