Let's start by looking at what permissions actually are. Some PHP scripts need to modify other files. For example, a script may need to store information in a text file. Permissions are a way of determining who can modify certain files, and who can't. It's important to understand that you don't usually modify the permissions of the PHP script itself. It's the files which the script needs to modify that need their permissions changed.

Permissions themselves are always a three digit number, such as 666, 600, 755. It doesn't matter what those numbers mean, you just need to know that there's always three digits, each digit being no greater than 7. Sometimes permissions are written as a four digit number, such as 0755, or 0666, with the first digit always being 0. You can ignore the 0, it's meaningless.

Changing permissions is as simple as typing a number. It can be done with an FTP program or with a web-based file manager or control panel.

You may not even need to change file permissions when you upload our scripts. Click here and see the "Test Your PHP configuration" section for a simple test you can perform. If it works you can use our scripts and ignore any advice to change permissions.