FUDforum 2.3 is designed with a security minded approach to data storage. This means that FUDforum 2.3 tries to ensure that your forum's data is as secure as possible. Therefor the forum's files are kept with the most minimalistic permissions (0600 for files and 0700 for directories), allowing only the web server to access those files. Thus they can be altered only using the forum's control panel, preventing other users from seeing and modifying your files.

There may be situations where you would need the ability to access many or all of the forum's files right away and changing permissions of each file using the file manager would be excessively difficult.

This control panel allows the administrator to 'unlock' the forum's files hence allowing those files to be accessed via FTP and SSH/Telnet. Once your are done, is is HIGHLY recommended that your 'lock' the forum back hence re-instating the secure permissions on your data.

This form can work virtually independently of the forum, so to 'lock' or 'unlock' files the administrator would need to specify their login & password and click on the appropriate button depending on which action they wish to perform.