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  • can you explain this in more detail? I will only be saving textfiles in that directory, so why do I need execute permissions? If the whole world has both write and execute permissions, this seems crazy. That's why I wanted only write and not execute permissions. What am I missing? Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 20:02
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    There must be execute permissions on all the directories /in/path/to/TEMPFILES/somefile as otherwise the program will not have permission to traverse through to somefile; the execute bit on a directory controls whether or not a path traversal is allowed. Another option would be to restrict the directory permissions to only that of the webserver, or a group containing the necessary users, if the o+rwx bits are problematic. Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 20:10
  • @thrig, you should elaborate on the s bit. Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 20:12
  • chmod a+X TEMPFILES is safer it will only add execute bits where needed (only for directories and files that already have it, for user). Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 21:40
  • Directory permissions are about the directory not the files in it. r read: allow reading of file-name from within the directory, x execute : allow access to files in directory, w write: allow adding and removing of files in directory. Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 21:42