Concepts Glossary 140 Getting Started Guide Don’t confuse the backward slash used in DOS and Windows with the forward slash used by Linux. The backward slash has special meaning in Linux and can’t be used to refer to file system subdirectories. . Directory The current directory that you are working in is always referred to by a single period. For example, if you are using the Linux copy command, cp, you can refer to the current directory to indicate the destination of the copy operation: cp /etc/printcap . .. Directory The parent directory of your current directory (.) is always referred to by two periods. The most common place that you’ll see this used is with the cd com- mand, to change your current directory to the parent directory. For example, if your current directory is /home/dtaylor/archive and you use this command: cd .. Your current directory will be /home/dtaylor. Access Rights Access rights, also called file permissions in Linux, define which system users can access a file or directory on your Linux system. The Access rights that Linux provides are • Read - Read a file or view the files in a directory • Write - Modify a file or create a new file in a directory • Execute - Run a program or change to a directory using the cd (or equiva- lent graphical) command The Execute file permission doesn’t have any meaning for files that are not pro- gram binaries or scripts that can be executed. Each of these permissions can be assigned or denied to three different sets of users: • The owner of the file or directory (determined by who created it)