The chmod command in Linux/Unix is abbreviated as CHange MODe. Chmod command is useful to change permission for Files and folders in Linux/Unix.

File/Directory permission is either Read or Write or executable for either user or group or others.

This type of restriction is useful for effective file/folder management, securing system and providing a level of access to a file/folder for the users who access them.

Why we need to change permissions of a file/directory?

1) To execute a script. 
2) File access required by an application to work properly. 
3) To make a file editable by a user.

How can we change permissions for a file/directory?

Permission/access is either Executable or Writable or Readable for a file/folder and can be changed by using following methods

1) Numerical method: Specifying numbers (1, 2, and 4,) to change the permission for a file/folder

2) Alpha method: Using alphabets (w, x, r, u, o, g, a, -, +, =, s, t) to change permissions for a file/folder

Numerical method

2^0=1 --eXecute

2^1=2 --Write

2^2=4 --Read

Addition to this there are three more concepts which are linked to this numbering method (I SUID, SGID, Sticky Bit). We will explain about these things in coming posts.

Alpha method

w --Write

x --eXecute

r --Read

u --User

g --Group

o --Others

a --all

+ --Add specified permissions to the mention user/group/others/all

- --Remove specified permissions from the mention user/group/others/all

= --Replicate the permission to other class of the group/user/others.

Addition to these there are s and t permissions(SUID, SGID and Sticky Bit) available for chmod command which we will discuss in next chmod tutorial.

In this post we will see numerical method as well as alpha method to change the basic permissions of a file. For that you should understand ls command output.

ls -al
Total 36
drwx------    2 surendra surendra  4096 May 18 07:32 .
drwxr-xr-x  691 root    root  12288 May 26 11:34 ..
-rw-------    1 surendra surendra   305 May 18 11:09 .bash_history

-rw-r–r–

 

The first column of the ls -l output can be divided in to 2 parts as shown above(in black[-] and red[rw-r–r–]).

1) File type (you can refer our other tutorial for different file types available in Linux)

2) Permissions to the file

This one again divided in to 3 parts

A) User permissions: This will show what the permissions an owner gets are

B) Group permissions: This will show what the permissions a group where owner belongs gets are.

C) Others permissions: This will show what the permissions all other users get are.

-rw-r–r–

The above permissions which can be divided as

rw- For the owner

r– For the group where user belongs

r– For all other users

chmod syntax: Before adding any permissions we have to what’s the syntax of chmod command

chmod options file/folder

For more help on chmod you can give below command

man chmod

Adding permission for User with examples

Through Numerical method:

Example 1: The file should have read, write and execute permissions to user, read and execute permissions to group and read, and execute permissions to others.

read, write and execute permissions to user =7

read and execute permissions to group =5

read and execute permissions to others=5

So total permissions will be 755

chmod 755 filename

Example 2: Providing write access to a user

chmod u+w filename

Example 3: Adding write permissions to a group

chmod g+w filename

Example 4: Adding executable permissions to others

chmod o+x filename

Example 5: Adding executable and write permissions to all

chmod a+wx filename

Example 6: Replicating user permissions to a group

chmod u=g filename

Example 7: Removing execute permissions to a user

Chmod u-x filename

Example 8: Adding execute permissions to others

Chmod o+x

Explore your self on how to use other options. In the next post we will see more about chmod options and examples such as change file/folder permissions recursively, SUID, SGID and Sticky bit. And we will see practical usages of chmod too.

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Surendra Anne

Mr Surendra Anne is from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. He is a Linux/Open source supporter who believes in Hard work, A down to earth person, Likes to share knowledge with others, Loves dogs, Likes photography. He works as Devops Engineer with Taggle systems, an IOT automatic water metering company, Sydney . You can contact him at surendra (@) linuxnix dot com.