Question Trying to install Kunena - having problems with directory permissions

Well, this really looks like directory permission issue with Joomla. I believe that you get the same error with every component you're trying to install.

This error comes from Joomla installer, so it's hard to know where the problem may be. Here are a few possibilities on kunena:

components
administrator/components
images

in your site this url: administrator/index.php?option=com_admin&task=sysinfo you have directory permissions: please take a look on it and fix the issues (red directories).

I ran into the very same issue trying to install several versions of kunena.

The problem is due to permissions. It is related to owner / group of who knows what files.

I solved it by running:
chown -R [Joomla website root]/* <owner>
chgrp -R [Joomla website root]/* <group>

and that cleared up the problem for me on my local machine (Mac OS X).

I previously did a chmod 777 * on the components and administrator/components folders, but that disn't resolve the problem, although the installer was able to create the com_kunena folders.

If you have shell access you can do this but be cautious. It may be that various files & folders have differing owners and group settings. The above 2 commands set EVERYTHING to the same owner and group.

Haveing experienced this now several times myself, I found one root cause for these permissions issues that we shoudl document on the wiki and also report back to the Joomla core team:

#1 issue I have seen for permissions issues are Joomla version upgrades

Yep, going from Joomla 1.5.15 to 1.5.18 based on the documented terminal option with

will reset the group and owner info on all updated files to invalid group and userids on mosty system. The reason being that tar will cary forward the group and user info from the source system where the tar was created.

On most hosting systems the owner and group should be apache:apache, therefore if you dont run

from the Joomla root, you will run into these permissions issues.

Also - you should never use nor have to use

Its an insecure work around to another problem.

fxstein wrote: ... we should document on the wiki and also report back to the Joomla core team:

Here's what we've said in the Wiki: Securing Kunena . Does anyone have some suggestions on how this advice can be improved?

Hi Sozzled,

On a different topic (upgrading to 1.6.3.), I granted write permission to all files and folders under com_kunena folder. The upgrade failed, but want to reset the permissions to default again. Regretfully the wiki you refer to does not reveal much. Is there a better source for this (securing Kunena)?

Can I help you guys out doing this for you? I'm not an expert, but I can list and summarize information based on sources provided.

Yours,

Jan

G'day, Maszek, and thank you. Any help that people can give to improve the quality of information in the Wiki is greatly appreciated. I agree that the current Wiki article Security Kunena lacks finesse (and I'm not sure how to improve on it) but it's a useful starting point.

Not all upgrade failures are due to incorrectly set folder/file permissions; there are also ownership issues involved, too. This topic originally started over a year ago and, at that time, the issues involved K 1.5. These days people are advised to use K 1.6 because the overall security of the product has improved considerably and, further, the original technical requirements article in the Wiki does not even mention file/folder permissions. Because our focus has shifted to K 1.6 we are no longer actively maintaining K 1.5 documentation.

The most important pre-requisites to ensure a smooth installation of Kunena are now contained in K 1.6 Technical Requirements and it's that article that people should look at first.

But if you think you can help, we would love to hear from you. If you have some further ideas about improving the file/folder permissions documentation, you can put them here under this topic.