Hopefully this won't be such a problem in the next version of Moodle, since some changes made a week ago or so mean that Moodle chmods all new directories to mode 777 by default (or to some other global permission you specify like 750).
[For those bamboozled by the codes, 777 means everyone has read/write/execute, and 750 means the creator has everything, the group has read/execute and others have none]
The problem with mode 777 then becomes a security problem in that anyone who has an account on your server will has write access to your Moodle data files.
It's tricky ...
Hello Martin
I have been playing around with file permissions, backups, different isp's etc. Some thoughts which may be helpful:
Some isp's do not allow 777 (either in terms of use or through security).
On one server I get intermittant 'safe mod' warnings even though permissions are apparently OK. But sometimes its OK .........
The biggest pain is being able to upload only 1 file at a time from within Moodle (if I do it by ftp permissions are wrong - unless I set everythig to 777!).
So - if we could get a list of Moodle friendly ISP's that might be a help, as well as the multiple file upload (or even better, a single button to restore all uploded files).
Backup of database and Moodle files is a snip with the right ISP - so should not be an issue
Best wishes
Ray Le Couteur