Chapter 6 Filesystem Security

A simple description of the Linux system (which is also true for Unix) is “On a Linux system, everything is a file; if something is not a file, it is a process.” Some entities are more than just files (named pipes and sockets, for instance); the Linux operating system and Linux commands treat them as files. Therefore, to simplify discussions, it is fair to say that everything is a file. A Linux system, just like Unix, does not distinguish between a file and a directory because a directory is just a file containing names of other files. Programs, services, texts, images, and so forth, are all files. Input and output devices, and generally all devices, are considered to be files, according to the system.

Linux systems ...

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