By typing ls –l you can see the permission bits of the file. There are different permission bits for each of owner, group, and world (everyone). The owner is shown first, then group, then world (from left to right). The file permissions are shown as “r” for readable, “w” for writeable, “x” for executable. The following file is “rwx” by root, “rx” by group root, and “rx” by everyone. Thus, only root may write to the file.