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I'm browsing a server with my ftp client. When I try to get the information about a folder, I cannot see the permissions (all rwx check boxes are unchecked).

If i try to check one of it, the operation is successful (I don't get any error), but then when I come back it is again unchecked.

What does it mean? I don't have privileges to read permissions but I can change them?

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What FTP client are you using? – Josh K Jun 2 '10 at 12:19
Cyberduck on mac. It always worked so far (on 5 6 different servers). – Patrick Jun 2 '10 at 16:54
What kind of server? The rwx permissions shown by the client are *nix and may not map to the file system of the server. – Chris Nava Jun 2 '10 at 17:29
It is an IIS Server... I dunno how to provide you more information. What are *nix permissions ? So what should I do to solve it ? – Patrick Jun 2 '10 at 19:06
*nix is Unix/Linux. There may be a setting on your client to tell it it's connecting to a Windows server. This should allow it to correctly display/set the permissions. – Chris Nava Jun 3 '10 at 14:27
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Possible cause:

In FTP, there is no standard format for directory listings; everything is sent as human-readable text, and GUI FTP clients must try to detect the output format.

Try to either enable the logging function of your FTP client, or use the command-line ftp, to see what is actually received from server. Maybe the server doesn't even use permissions? Maybe it uses some strange directory list format?

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ok, I've loged in with the terminal: 220 Microsoft FTP Service – Patrick Jun 2 '10 at 19:09
@Patrick: I actually wanted you to check the actual directory listing... But it doesn't matter now. "Microsoft FTP service" already tells us that it's a Windows system. And Windows systems do not have Unix-style rwx permissions. (There are security ACLs in Windows, but they cannot be changed over FTP.) – grawity Jun 2 '10 at 19:13
Remote system type is Windows_NT. Tell me what other information you need, and how can I get them, and I will write down. thanks – Patrick Jun 2 '10 at 19:15
So what does that mean ? I cannot change permissions through ftp, but I need ssh access ? Is that the only way ? – Patrick Jun 2 '10 at 19:15
@Patrick: Windows systems use a very different way of setting permissions. There is no rwx or chmod. Those are Unix(/Linux/BSD) things. Forget them. (There is no SSH either.) – grawity Jun 2 '10 at 19:28
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