Magento permissions can be an absolute pain! Use one of the solutions below to setup Magento permissions easily.
1. SSH Script
#!/bin/bash
find www -name .htaccess -exec chmod 604 {} ;
find www -name *.php -exec chmod 644 {} ;
find www -type d -exec chmod 705 {} ;
2. SSH Command Line
find ./ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; [...]

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