Files reappearing on server even after getting deleted

Question

I am deleting files (wordpress theme files )of my website to the server using cPanel, but still the files are reappearing. The files have a 000 permissions set.

It is strange that files have proper permissions ( i.e. 777) when they are on my local machine, but on uploading they are getting changed to 000. Do you think the site is infected by virus ? I run an Anti-Virus scan, and found none.

Any reason why this may be happening?

Answer 1

chmod 000 denies read, write, and execute permission to yourself, your group, and everyone else.

How are the files uploaded to the server? Your FTP program might me screwing up the files when they are uploaded.

If you have root access you should be able to remove using $ rm -rf filename

Edit

The Umask settings on your server are not right. Setting Umask to 777 will make permissions 000.

If you have shell access you can check for 777 Umask values by running: grep 'umask 777' /etc/skel/.bashrc

If you find anything change the Umask to 022. If you don't have shell access your host should be able to fix this for you.

Instead of using the cpanel uploader use a an FTP program like Transmit for Mac or Core FTP Pro for windows and make sure to always use SFTP which is encrypted instead of FTP.