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In Unix, How Do I Change The Permissions For A File

UNIX Basics

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48 views4 pages

In Unix, How Do I Change The Permissions For A File

UNIX Basics

Uploaded by

Mustaffah Kabelyyon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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INDIANA UNIVERSITY (HTTP://WWW.IU.

EDU)

In Unix, how do I change the


permissions for a le?
You can change le permissions with the chmod command. In Unix (agat), le permissions, which establish
who may have dierent types of access to a le, are specied by both access classes and access types.
Access classes are groups of users, and each may be assigned specic access types. The access classes
are "user", "group", "other", and "all". These refer, respectively, to the user who owns the le, a specic
group (aeqw) of users, the other remaining users who are not in the group, and all three sets of users.
Access types (read, write, and execute) determine what may be done with the le by each access class.

There are two basic ways of using chmod to change le permissions:

Symbolic method:

The rst and probably easiest way is the relative (or symbolic) method, which lets you specify access
classes and types with single letter abbreviations. A chmod command with this form of syntax
consists of at least three parts from the following lists:

Access Class Operator Access Type

u (user) + (add access) r (read)

g (group) - (remove access) w (write)

o (other) = (set exact access) x (execute)

a (all: u, g, and o)

For example, to add permission for everyone to read a le in the current directory named myfile , at
the Unix prompt, enter:

chmod a+r myfile

The a stands for "all", the + for "add", and the r for "read".

Note:

This assumes that everyone already has access to the directory where myfile is located and its
parent directories; that is, you must set the directory permissions separately.

If you omit the access class, it's assumed to be all, so you could also enter the previous example as:

chmod +r myfile
You can also specify multiple classes and types with a single command. For example, to remove read
and write permission for group and other users (leaving only yourself with read and write permission)
on a le named myfile , you would enter:

chmod go-rw myfile

You can also specify that dierent permissions be added and removed in the same command. For
example, to remove write permission and add execute for all users on myfile , you would enter:

chmod a-w+x myfile

In each of these examples, the access types that aren't specied are unchanged. The previous
command, for example, doesn't change any existing settings specifying whether users besides
yourself may have read ( r ) access to myfile . You could also use the exact form to explicitly state
that group and other users' access is set only to read with the = operator:

chmod go=r myfile

The chmod command also operates on directories. For example, to remove write permission for other
users on a subdirectory named mydir , you would enter:

chmod o-w mydir

To do the same for the current directory, you would enter:

chmod o-w

Be careful when setting the permissions of directories, particularly your home directory; you don't
want to lock yourself out by removing your own access. Also, you must have execute permission on a
directory to switch ( cd ) to it.

Absolute form

The other way to use the chmod command is the absolute form. In this case, you specify a set of three
numbers that together determine all the access classes and types. Rather than being able to change
only particular attributes, you must specify the entire state of the le's permissions.

The three numbers are specied in the order: user (or owner), group, other. Each number is the sum
of values that specify read (4), write (2), and execute (1) access, with 0 (zero) meaning no access. For
example, if you wanted to give yourself read, write, and execute permissions on myfile ; give users in
your group read and execute permissions; and give others only execute permission, the appropriate
number would be calculated as (4+2+1)(4+0+1)(0+0+1) for the three digits 751. You would then enter
the command as:

chmod 751 myfile


As another example, to give only yourself read, write, and execute permission on the current directory,
you would calculate the digits as (4+2+1)(0+0+0)(0+0+0) for the sequence 700, and enter the
command:

chmod 700

If it seems clearer to you, you can also think of the three digit sequence as the sum of attributes you
select from the following table:

400 Read by owner

200 Write by owner

100 Execute by owner

040 Read by group

020 Write by group

010 Execute by group

004 Read by others

002 Write by others

001 Execute by others

To create an access mode, sum all the accesses you wish to permit. For example, to give read
privileges to all, and write and execute privileges to the owner only for a le, you would sum:
400+200+100+040+004 = 744. Then, at the Unix prompt, you would enter:

chmod 744 myfile.ext

Some other frequently used examples are:

777 anyone can do anything (read, write, or execute)

755 you can do anything; others can only read and execute

711 you can do anything; others can only execute

644 you can read and write; others can only read

More
For more about chmod , consult the manual page. At the Unix prompt, enter:

man chmod
At Indiana University, for personal or departmental Linux or Unix systems support, see At IU, how do I get
support for Linux or Unix? (beqc)

Related documents

Introduction to Unix commands (afsk)

In Unix, how do I set the default protection to newly created directories and les? (acge)

This is document abdb in the Knowledge Base.


Last modied on 2017-10-27 09:05:15.

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