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home | helpx minix x x minixx CHMOD(1) User Commands CHMOD(1) NAME chmod - change file mode bits SYNOPSIS chmod [OPTION]... MODE[,MODE]... FILE... chmod [OPTION]... OCTAL-MODE FILE... chmod [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE... DESCRIPTION This manual page documents the GNU version of chmod. chmod changes the file mode bits of each given file according to mode, which can be ei- ther a symbolic representation of changes to make, or an octal number representing the bit pattern for the new mode bits. The format of a symbolic mode is [ugoa...][[-+=][perms...]...], where perms is either zero or more letters from the set rwxXst, or a single letter from the set ugo. Multiple symbolic modes can be given, sepa- rated by commas. A combination of the letters ugoa controls which users' access to the file will be changed: the user who owns it (u), other users in the file's group (g), other users not in the file's group (o), or all users (a). If none of these are given, the effect is as if (a) were given, but bits that are set in the umask are not affected. The operator + causes the selected file mode bits to be added to the existing file mode bits of each file; - causes them to be removed; and = causes them to be added and causes unmentioned bits to be removed ex- cept that a directory's unmentioned set user and group ID bits are not affected. The letters rwxXst select file mode bits for the affected users: read (r), write (w), execute (or search for directories) (x), execute/search only if the file is a directory or already has execute permission for some user (X), set user or group ID on execution (s), restricted dele- tion flag or sticky bit (t). Instead of one or more of these letters, you can specify exactly one of the letters ugo: the permissions granted to the user who owns the file (u), the permissions granted to other users who are members of the file's group (g), and the permissions granted to users that are in neither of the two preceding categories (o). A numeric mode is from one to four octal digits (0-7), derived by adding up the bits with values 4, 2, and 1. Omitted digits are assumed to be leading zeros. The first digit selects the set user ID (4) and set group ID (2) and restricted deletion or sticky (1) attributes. The second digit selects permissions for the user who owns the file: read (4), write (2), and execute (1); the third selects permissions for other users in the file's group, with the same values; and the fourth for other users not in the file's group, with the same values. chmod never changes the permissions of symbolic links; the chmod system call cannot change their permissions. This is not a problem since the permissions of symbolic links are never used. However, for each sym- bolic link listed on the command line, chmod changes the permissions of the pointed-to file. In contrast, chmod ignores symbolic links encoun- tered during recursive directory traversals. SETUID AND SETGID BITS chmod clears the set-group-ID bit of a regular file if the file's group ID does not match the user's effective group ID or one of the user's supplementary group IDs, unless the user has appropriate privileges. Additional restrictions may cause the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits of MODE or RFILE to be ignored. This behavior depends on the policy and functionality of the underlying chmod system call. When in doubt, check the underlying system behavior. For directories chmod preserves set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits un- less you explicitly specify otherwise. You can set or clear the bits with symbolic modes like u+s and g-s. To clear these bits for directo- ries with a numeric mode requires an additional leading zero, or lead- ing = like 00755 , or =755 RESTRICTED DELETION FLAG OR STICKY BIT The restricted deletion flag or sticky bit is a single bit, whose in- terpretation depends on the file type. For directories, it prevents unprivileged users from removing or renaming a file in the directory unless they own the file or the directory; this is called the re- stricted deletion flag for the directory, and is commonly found on world-writable directories like /tmp. For regular files on some older systems, the bit saves the program's text image on the swap device so it will load more quickly when run; this is called the sticky bit. OPTIONS Change the mode of each FILE to MODE. With --reference, change the mode of each FILE to that of RFILE. -c, --changes like verbose but report only when a change is made -f, --silent, --quiet suppress most error messages -v, --verbose output a diagnostic for every file processed --no-preserve-root do not treat '/' specially (the default) --preserve-root fail to operate recursively on '/' --reference=RFILE use RFILE's mode instead of MODE values -R, --recursive change files and directories recursively --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit Each MODE is of the form '[ugoa]*([-+=]([rwxXst]*|[ugo]))+|[-+=][0-7]+'. AUTHOR Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering. REPORTING BUGS GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> Report chmod translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/> COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. SEE ALSO chmod(2) Full documentation at: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chmod> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chmod invocation' GNU coreutils 8.30 September 2019 CHMOD(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SETUID AND SETGID BITS | RESTRICTED DELETION FLAG OR STICKY BIT | OPTIONS | AUTHOR | REPORTING BUGS | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO