Assigning Permissions

Under Linux, permissions are grouped by owner, group, and others, with read, write, and execute permission assigned to each, as follows:

Owner    Group    Othersrwx      rwx      rxw

Permissions can be indicated by mnemonic or octal characters. Mnemonic characters are listed here:

r indicates permission for an owner, member of the owner’s group, or others to open and read the file.

w indicates permission for an owner, member of the owner’s group, or others to open and write to the file.

x indicates permission for an owner, member of the owner’s group, or others to execute the file (or read a directory).

In the previous example for the file named file, the owner, matthew, has read and write permission. Any member of ...

Get Ubuntu Unleashed 2013 Edition: Covering 12.10 and 13.04, Eighth Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.