Permission File Meaning Directory Meaning Read Allows a file to be read
THE CHARACTERA REPRESENTS ALL MEANING USER GROUP AND OTHER
Symbol | Permission |
r | Read |
w | |
x | Execute |
Read, write, and execute are rather self explanatory. If you have “read” permissions, you can see the contents of the file. If you have “write” permissions, you can modify the file. If you have “execute” permissions, you can run the file as a program. However, when these permissions are applied to directories, they have a slightly different meaning than when they are applied to files.
Permission | File Meaning | Directory Meaning |
Read | Allows a file to be read. | Allows file names in the directory to be read. |
Write | Allows a file to be modified. | Allows entries to be modified within the directory. |
Execute | Allows the execution of a file. | Allows access to contents and metadata for entries in the directory. |
There are three categories of users that these permissions can be applied to. These categories—or classes—are user, group, and other. Like the permission types, each set is represented by a single letter. The user who owns the file is represented byu, the users in the files group are represented byg, and the other users who do not own the file or are not in the files group are represented byo. The charactera represents all, meaning user, group, and other. Even though these characters do not show up in anls listing, they can be used to change permissions.