Understanding File Modes (Permissions)
The following section uses the word file to mean both files and directories, and the word plain, or regular, file to refer to a file (not a directory).
In the previous section, you saw that ls could tell you permission information about files:
ls -ldg security.html -rwxr-xr-- 1 blackie users 12383 Mar 15 10:27 security.html
The following file modes (permission information) are given in the first 10 characters of each output line from a long listing (see Figure 14.1):
1 character: file type
3 characters: permissions for the user who is the file owner
3 characters: permissions if not owner but in same group
3 characters: permissions if not owner nor in same group
Figure 14.1. File mode is one file type bit and ...
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