graphics\howbutt.gifSetting permissions and ownerships

The system administrator or root user is responsible for managing the system. You can assign access permissions and ownerships to each user account, directory, and file on the system. Assigning user access permission and ownership is a security measure to ensure that, although many users can access the system, certain users are not allowed to look at or change specified files or directories.

Permissions

As the root user, you can assign permissions to files and directories for users and groups. For files, you can assign read, write, and execute permission. For directories, you can show entries, write entries, and search permissions. The root user can create user groups that have specific file access permissions. Users assigned to a group are automatically assigned the permissions associated with that group. For example, a group named "Mail" can be assigned file access permission to read and write to the files associated with mail utilities and administration. The user who belongs to the "Mail" group has read and write permission for mail-related directories and files.

Ownerships

Every file and directory has an assigned owner. In general, the owner is the user who creates the file or directory. File and directory owners can set permissions. However, as the root user, you can change the ownerships of files and directories to prevent the original owners from further accessing them or changing the permissions.