How to get octal file permissions on Linux/Unix command line

I am a new Linux command line user. How do I find file permissions in octal format such as 0644 from the bash command line running on a Linux or Unix operating systems? How can I get the octal permissions for a file? How do I get octal file permissions on Linux/Unix?

You need to use the stat command to view or get octal file permissions for given filename. By default the ls command will not display the permissions on a file in octal form. The permission in octal form is useful for many commands such as chmod command and other Linux or Unix sysadmin tasks. This quick tutorial shows how to use the stat command to view octal file permissions.
 

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	Linux or Unix terminal
Category	File Management
OS compatibility	BSD • Linux • macOS • Unix
Est. reading time	4 minutes

How to get octal file permissions on Linux/Unix command line

To get file or file system status try the stat command. However, the syntax for stat is different on GNU/Linux and BSD/macOS Unix like systems. Let us see how to display file or file system status using the stat command.

Getting octal file permissions on Linux CLI

The syntax is as follows to get octal file permissions on Linux:
stat fileName
stat -c 'Format' file
The default output is as follows on a GNU/Linux. Let us see info for the /etc/passwd as follows:
stat /etc/passwd
Sample outputs:

  File: /etc/passwd
  Size: 2605      	Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: fd01h/64769d	Inode: 15469225    Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2017-11-05 19:06:44.879876898 +0530
Modify: 2017-10-16 00:15:53.236876717 +0530
Change: 2017-10-16 00:15:53.236876717 +0530
 Birth: -

There is no need to use the grep command or egrep command to filter info displayed by the stat command. Instead, to print octal file permissions on a GNU/Linux try the following syntax. For instance:
stat -c '%a' /etc/passwd
Sample outputs:

644

Want to store outputs in a shell variable? Try the following syntax:

1 2	filename="/etc/hosts" result="$(stat -c '%a' "$filename")"

Then display result using the echo command or printf command as follows:

1 2 3

printf "%s\n" "$result" ## OR ## echo "$result"

Another useful command that displays file permissions in both format:
stat -c '%A %a %n' /etc/passwd
Sample outputs:

-rw-r--r-- 644 /etc/passwd

Where format is as follows:

Format	Description
%a	access rights in octal (note ‘#’ and ‘0’ printf flags)
%A	access rights in human readable form
%b	number of blocks allocated (see %B)
%B	the size in bytes of each block reported by %b
%C	SELinux security context string
%d	device number in decimal
%D	device number in hex
%f	raw mode in hex
%F	file type
%g	group ID of owner
%G	group name of owner
%h	number of hard links
%i	inode number
%m	mount point
%n	file name
%N	quoted file name with dereference if symbolic link
%o	optimal I/O transfer size hint
%s	total size, in bytes
%t	major device type in hex, for character/block device special files
%T	minor device type in hex, for character/block device special files
%u	user ID of owner
%U	user name of owner
%w	time of file birth, human-readable; – if unknown
%W	time of file birth, seconds since Epoch; 0 if unknown
%x	time of last access, human-readable
%X	time of last access, seconds since Epoch
%y	time of last data modification, human-readable
%Y	time of last data modification, seconds since Epoch
%z	time of last status change, human-readable
%Z	time of last status change, seconds since Epoch

A note about macOS/BSD stat command

The syntax is as follows for BSD stat command to get octal file permissions on BSD or macOS:
stat fileName
stat -f "Format" fileName
The default output is as follows:
stat /etc/passwd
Sample outputs:

1518287693 66065 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 4294967295 1724 "Oct 28 13:50:15 2017" "Oct 28 13:50:15 2017" "Oct 28 13:50:15 2017" "Oct 28 13:50:15 2017" 4096 9 0x800 /etc/passwd

To just see octal file permissions
stat -f "%OLp" /etc/passwd
Sample outputs:

644

To displays file permissions in both format:
stat -f "%Sp %OLp %N" /etc/passwd
Sample outputs:

-rw-r--r-- 644 /etc/passwd

Dealing with multiple files

Say you want to get info about the /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/shadow, then use bash for loop as follows on your machine (double click to select the code):

1 2 3 4

for f in /etc/passwd /etc/group /etc/shadow do   echo "File '$f' : $(stat -c "%a"  "$f")" done

Here is what I see:

File '/etc/passwd' : 644
File '/etc/group' : 644
File '/etc/shadow' : 640

Conclusion

You just learned how to use the stat command to get octal file permissions from the command line. See stat command man page by typing the man command or help command. For example:
man 1 stat