You might have come across the following error while in Magento Connect Manager – Warning: Your Magento folder does not have sufficient write permissions. Magento needs certain file and folder permissions to be able to automatically performs upgrades and module installs.
Open your SSH and browse to your root folder. Then, run the following commands.
[bash]
find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
chmod 777 -R downloader var media
[/bash]
This should set your Magento file and folder permissions to the preferred state.
Should the files not be 644 rather than 664?