Unix file permissions
Unreviewed migration
A basic understanding of how Unix file permissions work will aid users in keeping sensible permissions on files they own or use and block malicious users from reading or worse, changing, these files. Every file and directory, from / downwards through the hierarchy, has an owner and a group owner, and 9 permissions set on it. For each of the owner/group owner/everybody else, whether they can read/write/execute the file is defined. These entities are also referred to as user/group/world or user/group/others.
There are plenty of online articles on this topic, two to start with are in Wikipedia and The Linux Documentation Project. The rest of this FAQ will assume you understand what the basic 9 permissions mean.
To see the permissions on a file
Type ls -l filename or ls -ld directory_name for a directory but not its contents.
To change the permissions on a file
Use chmod. Type man chmod to see the options available. Only the file owner or root can chmod a file.
To set default permissions on new files - umask
Use umask. Becoming wise in the ways of umask can save you a lot of chmodding, particularly when working in a group account directory. Without umask, files are created with permissions 666 (-rw-rw-rw-) and directories 777 (drwxrwxrwx); umask acts to reverse (mask) the specified permission bits. The default umask in CSE is 027 (rw-r-x---), set in your .profile, so instead of 666 files are created as 640 (-rw-r-----) and directories 750 (drwxr-x---) which are a lot more secure. You can check your umask at any time by simply typing umask and change it with umask <new mask>.
Never set world-write permissions on a file or directory! This can potentially enable anybody in the world to change the file, or add/delete files to/from the directory. If you think you need world-write on something, for instance to share a directory with a friend, then what you really need is a group account.
Providing group access
Access to a file may be given to members of a group. It is assumed the reader has already read about the effect read/write/execute permissions have on group access to files and directories. If your account owns a file you can set the file to be in any group that you are a member: chgrp groupname filename Other members can then read the file if you make it group readable: chmod g+r filename Or, can access files within a directory if you make the directory group executable: chmod g+x directory_name A useful property of file permissions is the group sticky bit that will cause all files subsequently created within a directory to be in the same group as the directory: chmod g+s directory_name This simplifies management of group directories as all files created will automatically be accessible by other group members.
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