Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

Lab 3.2.2.4 - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission

Settings
This lab has been updated for use on NETLAB+.
www.netdevgroup.com

Objectives
In this lab, you will use familiarize yourself with Linux filesystems.

Part 1: Exploring Filesystems in Linux

The Linux filesystem is one of its most popular features. W hile Linux supports many different types of
filesystems, this lab focuses on the ext family, one the most common filesystems found on Linux.

Step 1: Access the command line.

Launch the CyberOps Workstation VM. Log on to the CyberOps Workstation VM as the analyst, using the
password cyberops and open a terminal window.

Step 2: Display the filesystems currently mounted.

Filesystems must be mounted before they can be accessed and used. In computing, mounting a filesystem
means to make it accessible to the operating system. Mounting a filesystem is the process of linking the
physical partition on the block device (hard drive, SSD drive, pen drive, etc.) to a directory, through which the
entire filesystem can be accessed. Because the aforementioned directory becomes the root of the newly
mounted filesystem, it is also known as mounting point.
a. Use the lsblk command to display all block devices:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 5.9G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 5.9G 0 part /
sdb 8:16 0 1G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 0 1023M 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
The output above shows that the CyberOps Workstation VM has three block devices installed: sr0, sda
and sdb. The tree-like output also shows partitions under sda and sdb. Conventionally, /dev/sdX is used
by Linux to represent hard drives, with the trailing number representing the partition number inside that
device. Computers with multiple hard drives would likely display more /dev/sdX devices. If Linux was
running on a computer with four hard drives for example, it would show them as /dev/sda, /dev/sdb,
/dev/sdc and /dev/sdd, by default. The output implies that sda and sdb are hard drives, each one
containing a single partition. The output also shows that sda is a 5.9GB disk while sdb has 1GB.
Note: Linux often displays USB flash drives as /dev/sdX as well, depending on their firmware type.

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

b. Use the mount command to display more detailed information on the currently mounted filesystems in the
CyberOps Workstation VM.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ mount
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=1030408k,nr_inodes=218258,mode=755)
run on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
<output omitted>
Many of the filesystems above are out of scope of this course and irrelevant to the lab. Let’s focus on the
root filesystem, the filesystem stored in /dev/sda1. The root filesystem is where the Linux operating
system itself is stored; all the programs, tools, configuration files are stored in root filesystem by default.
c. Run the mount command again, but this time, use the pipe | to send the output of mount to grep to filter
the output and display only the root filesystem:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ mount | grep sda1
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
In the filtered output above, mount shows us that the root filesystem is located in the first partition of the
sda block device (/dev/sda1). W e know this is the root filesystem because of the mounting point used: “/”
(the slash symbol). The output also tells us the type of formatting used in the partition, ext4 in this case.
The information in between parentheses relates to the partition mounting options.
d. Issue the following two commands below on the CyberOps Workstation VM:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ cd /
[analyst@secOps /]$ ls -l
What is the meaning of the output? Where are the listed files physically stored?

Why is /dev/sdb1 not shown in the output above?

Step 3: Manually mounting and unmounting filesystems

The mount command can also be used to mount and unmount filesystems. As seen in Step 1, the CyberOps
Workstation VM has two hard drives installed. The first one was recognized by the kernel as /dev/sda while
the second was recognized as /dev/sdb. Before a block device can be mounted, it must have a mounting
point.
a. Use the ls -l command to verify that the directory second_drive is in the analyst's home directory.
[analyst@secOps /]$ cd ~

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls –l
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 3 analyst analyst 4096 Aug 16 15:15 cyops_folder2
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Sep 26 2014 Desktop
drwx------ 3 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 14 11:28 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 8 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 25 16:27 lab.support.files
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Mar 3 15:56 second_drive

Note: If the directory second_drive does not exist, use the mkdir second_drive command to create it.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ mkdir second_drive
Note: Depending on the state of your VM, your listing will most likely have different files and directories.
b. Use ls -l again to list the contents of the newly created second_drive directory.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -l second_drive/
total 0

Notice that the directory is empty.

c. Use the mount command to mount /dev/sdb1 on the newly created second_drive directory. The syntax
of mount is: mount [options] <device to be mounted> <mounting point>.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 ~/second_drive/
[sudo] password for analyst:
No output is provided which means the mounting process was successful.
d. Now that the /dev/sdb1 has been mounted on /home/analyst/second_drive, use ls -l to list the
contents of the directory again.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -l second_drive/
total 20
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Mar 3 10:59 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 183 Mar 3 15:42 myFile.txt
Why is the directory no longer empty? Where are the listed files physically stored?

e. Issue the mount command with no options again to display detailed information about the /dev/sdb1
partition. As before, use the grep command to display only the /dev/sdX filesystems:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ mount | grep sd
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sdb1 on /home/analyst/second_drive type ext2
(rw,relatime,block_validity,barrier,user_xattr,acl)
f. Unmounting filesystems is just as simple. Make sure you change the directory to something outside of the
mounting point and use the umount command as shown below:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ sudo umount /dev/sda1
[sudo] password for analyst:
[analyst@secOps ~]$[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -
l second_drive/
total 0

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

Part 2: File Permissions

Linux filesystems have built-in features to control the ability of the users to view, change, navigate, and
execute the contents of the filesystem. Essentially, each file in filesystems carries its own set of permissions,
always carrying a set of definitions about what users and groups can do with the file.

Step 1: Visualize and Change the File Permissions.

a. Navigate to /home/analyst/lab.support.files/scripts/.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ cd lab.support.files/scripts/
b. Use the ls -l command to display file permissions.
[analyst@secOps scripts]$ ls -l
total 60
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 190 Jun 13 09:45 configure_as_dhcp.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 192 Jun 13 09:45 configure_as_static.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 3459 Jul 18 10:09 cyberops_extended_topo_no_fw.py
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 4062 Jul 18 10:09 cyberops_extended_topo.py
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 3669 Jul 18 10:10 cyberops_topo.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 2871 Apr 28 11:27 cyops.mn
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 458 May 1 13:50 fw_rules
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 70 Apr 28 11:27 mal_server_start.sh
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Jun 13 09:55 net_configuration_files
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 65 Apr 28 11:27 reg_server_start.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 189 Dec 15 2016 start_ELK.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 85 Dec 22 2016 start_miniedit.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 76 Jun 22 11:38 start_pox.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 106 Jun 27 09:47 start_snort.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 61 May 4 11:45 start_tftpd.sh
Consider the cyops.mn file as an example. Who is the owner of the file? How about the group?

The permission for cyops.mn are –rw-r--r--. W hat does that mean?

c. The touch command is very simple and useful. It allows for the quick creation of an empty text file. Use
the command below to create an empty file in the /mnt directory:
[analyst@secOps scripts]$ touch /mnt/myNewFile.txt
touch: cannot touch '/mnt/myNewFile.txt': Permission denied

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

Was the file created? List the permissions, ownership and content of the /mnt directory and explain what
happened. Record the answer in the lines below.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -l /mnt
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 3 11:13 second_drive
With the addition of -d option, it lists the permission of the parent directory.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -ld /mnt
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 3 15:43 /mnt

What can be done for the touch command shown above to be successful?

d. The chmod command is used to change the permissions of a file or directory. As before, mount the
/dev/sdb1 partition on the /home/analyst/second_drive directory created earlier in this lab:
[analyst@secOps scripts]$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 ~/second_drive/
e. Change to the second_drive directory and list the contents of it:
[analyst@secOps scripts]$ cd ~/second_drive
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ ls -l
total 20
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Mar 3 10:59 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 183 Mar 3 15:42 myFile.txt

What are the permissions of the myFile.txt file?

f. Use the chmod command to change the permissions of myFile.txt.

[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ sudo chmod 665 myFile.txt
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ ls -l
total 20
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Mar 3 10:59 lost+found
-rw-rw-r-x 1 root root 183 Mar 3 15:42 myFile.txt
Did the permissions change? W hat are the permissions of myFile.txt?

The chmod command takes permissions in the octal format. In that way, a breakdown of the 665 is as
follows:
6 in octal is 110 in binary. Assuming each position of the permissions of a file can be 1 or 0, 110 means
rw- (read=1, write=1 and execute=0).

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

Therefore, the chmod 665 myFile.txt command changes the permissions to:
Owner: rw- (6 or 110 in octal)
Group: rw- (6 or 110 in octal)
Other: r-x (5 or 101 in octal)
What command would change the permissions of myFile.txt to rwxrwxrwx, granting any user in the
system full access to the file?

g. The chown command is used to change ownership of a file or directory. Issue the command below to
make the analyst user the owner of the myFile.txt:
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ sudo chown analyst myFile.txt
[sudo] password for analyst:
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ ls -l
total 20
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Mar 3 10:59 lost+found
-rw-rw-r-x 1 analyst root 183 Mar 3 15:42 myFile.txt
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$
Note: To change the owner and group to analyst at the same time, use the sudo chown analyst:analyst
myFile.txt format.
h. Now that analyst is the file owner, try appending the word ‘test’ to the end of myFile.txt.
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ echo test >> myFile.txt
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ cat myFile.txt
Was the operation successful? Explain.

Step 2: Directory and Permissions

Similar to regular files, directories also carry permissions. Directories, however, have an extra bit in the
permissions.
a. Change back to the /home/analyst/lab.support.files directory and issue the ls -l command to list
all the files with details:
[analyst@secOps second_drive]$ cd ~/lab.support.files/
[analyst@secOps lab.support.files]$ ls -l
total 580
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 649 Jun 28 18:34 apache_in_epoch.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 126 Jun 28 11:13 applicationX_in_epoch.log
drwxr-xr-x 4 analyst analyst 4096 Aug 7 15:29 attack_scripts
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 102 Jul 20 09:37 confidential.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 2871 Dec 15 2016 cyops.mn
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 75 May 24 11:07 elk_services

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 373 Feb 16 16:04 h2_dropbear.banner

-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 147 Mar 21 15:30 index.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 255 May 2 13:11 letter_to_grandma.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 24464 Feb 7 2017 logstash-tutorial.log
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 May 25 13:01 malware
-rwxr-xr-x 1 analyst analyst 172 Jul 25 16:27 mininet_services
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Feb 14 2017 openssl_lab
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Aug 7 15:25 pcaps
drwxr-xr-x 7 analyst analyst 4096 Sep 20 2016 pox
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 473363 Feb 16 15:32 sample.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 65 Feb 16 15:45 sample.img_SHA256.sig
drwxr-xr-x 3 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 18 10:10 scripts
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 25553 Feb 13 2017 SQL_Lab.pcap
Compare the permissions of the malware directory with the mininet_services file. What is the difference
between their permissions?

The letter ‘d’ indicates that that specific entry is a directory and not a file. Another difference between file
and directory permissions is the execution bit. If a file has its execution bit turned on, it means it can be
executed by the system. Directories are different than files with the execution bit set (a file with the
execution bit set is an executable script or program). A directory with the execution bit set specifies
whether a user can enter that directory.
The chmod and chown commands work for directories in the same way they work for files.

Part 3: Symbolic Links and other Special File Types

You have now seen some of the different file types in Linux. The first character in each file listing in an ls –l
command shows the file type. The three different types of files in Linux including their sub-types and
characters are:
Regular files (-) including:
- Readable files – text files
- Binary files - programs
- Image files
- Compressed files
Directory files (d)
- Folders
Special Files including:
- Block files (b) – Files used to access physical hardware like mount points to access hard drives.
- Character device files (c) – Files that provide a serial stream of input and output. tty terminals are
examples of this type of file.
- Pipe files (p) – A file used to pass information where the first bytes in are the first bytes. This is also
known as FIFO (first in first out).
- Symbolic Link files (l) – Files used to link to other files or directories. There are two types: symbolic
links and hard links.-
- Socket files (s) – These are used to pass information from application to application in order to
communicate over a network.

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

Step 1: Examine file types.

a. Change to the /home/analyst directory and create a space.txt file. Use the ls -l command to display the
files. Notice the first characters of each line are either a “–“ indicating a file or a “d” indicating a directory

[analyst@secOps lab.support.files]$ cd ~
[analyst@secOps ~]$ touch space.txt
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -l
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Sep 26 2014 Desktop
drwx------ 3 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 14 11:28 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 8 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 25 16:27 lab.support.files
drwxr-xr-x 3 analyst analyst 4096 Mar 3 18:23 second_drive
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 0 Aug 16 13:38 space.txt
b. Produce a listing of the /dev directory. Scroll to the middle of the output and notice how the block files
begin with a “b”, the character device files begin with a “c” and the symbolic link files begin with an “l”:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -l /dev/
<output omitted>
crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty 5, 2 May 29 18:32 ptmx
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 May 23 06:40 pts
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 8 May 23 06:41 random crw-
rw-r-- 1 root root 10, 56 May 23 06:41 rfkill
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 May 23 06:41 rtc -> rtc0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 253, 0 May 23 06:41 rtc0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 May 23 06:41 sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 May 23 06:41 sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 May 23 06:41 sdb
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 17 May 23 06:41 sdb1
drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 40 May 28 13:47 shm
crw------- 1 root root 10, 231 May 23 06:41 snapshot
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 80 May 23 06:41 snd
brw-rw----+ 1 root optical 11, 0 May 23 06:41 sr0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 May 23 06:40 stderr -> /proc/self/fd/2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 May 23 06:40 stdin -> /proc/self/fd/0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 May 23 06:40 stdout -> /proc/self/fd/1
crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty 5, 0 May 29 17:36 tty
crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 0 May 23 06:41 tty0
<output omitted>
c. Symbolic links in Linux are like shortcuts in Windows. There are two types of links in Linux: symbolic links
and hard links. The difference between symbolic links and a hard links is that a symbolic link file points to
the name of another file and a hard link file points to the contents of another file. Create two files by using
echo:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ echo "symbolic" > file1.txt
[analyst@secOps ~]$ cat file1.txt
symbolic
[analyst@secOps ~]$ echo "hard" > file2.txt
[analyst@secOps ~]$ cat file2.txt
hard

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 Lab - Navigating the Linux Filesystem and Permission Settings

d. Use ln –s to create a symbolic link to file1.txt, and ln to create a hard link to file2.txt:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ln –s file1.txt file1symbolic
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ln file2.txt file2hard
e. Use the ls –l command and examine the directory listing:
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ls -l
total 40
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Sep 26 2014 Desktop
drwx------ 3 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 14 11:28 Downloads
lrwxrwxrwx 1 analyst analyst 9 Aug 17 16:43 file1symbolic -> file1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 9 Aug 17 16:41 file1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 2 analyst analyst 5 Aug 17 16:42 file2hard
-rw-r--r-- 2 analyst analyst 5 Aug 17 16:42 file2.txt
drwxr-xr-x 8 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 25 16:27 lab.support.files
drwxr-xr-x 3 analyst analyst 4096 Mar 3 18:23 second_drive
-rw-r--r-- 1 analyst analyst 254 Aug 16 13:38 space.txt
Notice how the file file1symbolic is a symbolic link with an l at the beginning of the line and a pointer ->
to file1.txt. The file2hard appears to be a regular file, because in fact it is a regular file that happens to
point to the same inode on the hard disk drive as file2.txt. In other words, file2hard points to the same
attributes and disk block location as file2.txt.
f. Change the names of the original files: file1.txt and file2.txt, and notice how it affects the linked files.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ mv file1.txt file1new.txt
[analyst@secOps ~]$ mv file2.txt file2new.txt

[analyst@secOps ~]$ cat file1symbolic

cat: file1symbolic: no such file or directory

[analyst@secOps ~]$ cat file2hard

hard
Notice how file1symbolic is now a broken symbolic link because the name of the file that it pointed to
file1.txt has changed, but the hard link file file2hard still works correctly because it points to the inode of
file2.txt and not its name which is now file2new.txt.
What do you think would happen to file2hard if you opened a text editor and changed the text in
file2new.txt?

Reflection
File permissions and ownership are two of the most important aspects of Linux. They are also a common
cause of problems. A file that has the wrong permissions or ownership set will not be available to the
programs that need to access it. In this scenario, the program will usually break and errors will be
encountered.

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