I've just found out that a server I am working on really wants chmod permissions to be set to 777, on quite a lot of WordPress files. This feels very unsafe to me, but there is simply no way around it.
I know 777 doesn't generally mean it's always insecure, but I believe within a Wordpress install this actually is the case.
I've noticed it's impossible to update plug-ins and wordpress itself when permissions aren't set to 777 for files in wp-admin etc., so the only solution I can think of now is to set them to 777 temporarily and after the updates set them back to 755 and 644. But I don't know if that reversion will make the uploading of images impossible for my editor, etc.
I wonder if there is anyone else out there who also has a server that won't eat anything lower than 777, and how they got around it.
So far my 'temporary setting' seems the only solution?