Linux Administration Cookbook

Avoiding octal notation (if you hate it) in chmod

You don't absolutely have to use the octal format in the chmod world; it does give you other options that are easier to read:

$ sudo chmod uo=rw,g=r permissionfile

The preceding command would give the user and others the read/write rights, and the group the read rights.

Or, you might add a value to the permissions:

$ sudo chmod g+x permissionfile 

This would grant the group the additional ability to execute the file:

$ ls -l permissionfile-rw-r-xrw-. 1 vagrant root 26 Oct 28 13:03 permissionfile