h5

Understand File Permissions Settings

file type indicators

Letter      Indicated File Type

d            Directory

b            Block-type special file

c            Character-type special file

l             Symbolic link

p            Pipe

s             Socket

-             Regular file

 

read-only permission

read-write permission

write-only permission: log files

 

it’s perfectly feasible to have a program with read and execute permission, but no write permission.

Copying requires the ability to read the file.

 

Though actual programs with execute-only permission work fine, a special

class of programs called shell scripts fail. Shell scripts act like a UNIX

command-line macro facility, which enables you to save easily a series of

commands in a file and then run them as a single program. To work,

however, the shell must be able to read the file and execute it, too, so

shell scripts always require both read and execute permissions.

 

The most common file permissions.

Permission      Meaning

---                 No access is allowed

r--                 Read-only access

r-x                 Read and execute access, for programs and shell scripts

rw-                Read and write access, for files

rwx               All access allowed, for programs

 

Directory Permissions Settings

The most common directory permissions.

Permission      Meaning

---          No access allowed to directory

r-x          Read-only access, no modification allowed

rwx        All access allowed

 

Modify File and Directory Permissions with chmod

symbolic mode

$ chmod [u|g|o|a][+|-|=][rwx] file

 

numeric mode

---   0

r--   4

r-x   5

rw-  6

rwx 7

 

Common permissions and their numeric equivalents

Permission      Numeric         Used With

---------          000                All types

r--------          400                Files

r--r--r--          444                Files

rw-------        600                Files

rw-r--r--        644                Files

rw-rw-r--              664                Files

rw-rw-rw-     666                Files

rwx------        700                Programs and directories

rwxr-x---              750                Programs and directories

rwxr-xr-x              755                Programs and directories

 

Establish Default File and Directory Permissions with the umask Command

The controlling variable behind the default permissions is called the file creation mask, or umask for short.

The umask command is a filter through which permissions are pushed to ascertain what remains.

$ umask

$ umask 277

 

Identify Owner and Group for Any File or Directory

$ ls -g

$ ls -o

$ ls -og

 

Change the Owner of a File or Directory

$ chown root file

 

once you’ve changed the ownership of a file, you cannot restore it to yourself. Only the owner of a file can give away its ownership, so don’t use the chown command unless you’re absolutely positive you want to!

 

Change the Group of a File or Directory

$ chgrp root file