File: *manpages*, Node: chmod, Up: (dir) 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 either 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 except 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. chmod preserves a directory's set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly specify otherwise. You can set or clear the bits with symbolic modes like u+s and g-s, and you can set (but not clear) the bits with a numeric mode. RESTRICTED DELETION FLAG OR STICKY BIT The restricted deletion flag or sticky bit is a single bit, whose interpretation 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 restricted 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. mode of each FILE to that of RFILE. With --reference, change the

-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 '[ugoa]*([-+=]([rwxXst]*|[ugo]))+|[-+=][0-7]+'. the form

AUTHOR Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering. REPORTING BUGS Report chmod bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/> Report chmod translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/> COPYRIGHT Copyright 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://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) The full documentation for chmod is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and chmod programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'chmod invocation' should give you access to the complete manual.

GNU coreutils 8.19 CHMOD(2)

August 2012 Linux Programmer's Manual

CHMOD(1) CHMOD(2)

NAME chmod, fchmod - change permissions of a file SYNOPSIS #include <sys/stat.h> int chmod(const char *path, mode_t mode); int fchmod(int fd, mode_t mode); Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)): fchmod(): _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 || _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED || /* Since glibc 2.12: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L DESCRIPTION These system calls change the permissions of a file. They differ only in how the file is specified: * chmod() changes the permissions of the file specified whose pathname is given in path, which is dereferenced if it is a symbolic link. * fchmod() changes the permissions of the file referred to by the open file descriptor fd.

The new file permissions are specified in mode, which is a bit mask created by ORing together zero or more of the following: S_ISUID (04000) set-user-ID (set process effective user execve(2)) ID on

S_ISGID (02000) set-group-ID (set process effective group ID on execve(2); mandatory locking, as described in fcntl(2); take a new file's group from parent direc tory, as described in chown(2) and mkdir(2)) S_ISVTX (01000) sticky bit (restricted deletion flag, as described in unlink(2)) S_IRUSR (00400) read by owner S_IWUSR (00200) write by owner S_IXUSR (00100) execute/search by owner ("search" applies for direc tories, and means that entries within the directory can be accessed) S_IRGRP (00040) read by group S_IWGRP (00020) write by group S_IXGRP (00010) execute/search by group S_IROTH (00004) read by others S_IWOTH (00002) write by others S_IXOTH (00001) execute/search by others The effective UID of the calling process must match the owner of the file, or the process must be privileged (Linux: it must have the CAP_FOWNER capability). If the calling process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_FSETID capability), and the group of the file does not match the effective group ID of the process or one of its supplementary group IDs, the S_ISGID bit will be turned off, but this will not cause an error to be returned. As a security measure, depending on the file system, the set-user-ID and set-group-ID execution bits may be turned off if a file is written. (On Linux this occurs if the writing process does not have the CAP_FSETID capability.) On some file systems, only the superuser can set the sticky bit, which may have a special meaning. For the sticky bit, and for set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits on directories, see stat(2). On NFS file systems, restricting the permissions will immediately influence already open files, because the access control is done on the server, but open files are maintained by the client. Widening the per missions may be delayed for other clients if attribute caching is enabled on them. RETURN VALUE On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is

set appropriately. ERRORS Depending on the file system, other errors can be returned. general errors for chmod() are listed below: The more

EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix. (See also path_resolution(7).) EFAULT path points outside your accessible address space. EIO An I/O error occurred.

ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path. ENAMETOOLONG path is too long. ENOENT The file does not exist. ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available. ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. EPERM The effective UID does not match the owner of the file, and the process is not privileged (Linux: it does not have the CAP_FOWNER capability). EROFS The named file resides on a read-only file system. The general errors for fchmod() are listed below: EBADF The file descriptor fd is not valid. EIO See above.

EPERM See above. EROFS See above. CONFORMING TO 4.4BSD, SVr4, POSIX.1-2001. SEE ALSO chown(2), execve(2), fchmodat(2), open(2), stat(2), path_resolution(7) COLOPHON This page is part of release 3.41 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux

2010-09-26

CHMOD(2)