Skip to Content
UNIX System Administration Handbook, Third Edition
book

UNIX System Administration Handbook, Third Edition

by Scott Seebass, Garth Snyder, Evi Nemeth, Trent R. Hein
August 2000
Intermediate to advanced
896 pages
28h 17m
English
Pearson
Content preview from UNIX System Administration Handbook, Third Edition

3.1 Ownership of files and processes

Every UNIX file has both an owner and a “group owner.” The owner of the file enjoys one special privilege that is not shared with everyone on the system: the ability to modify the permissions of the file. In particular, the owner can set the permissions on a file so restrictively that no one else can access it.1 We take up the subject of file permissions in Chapter 5, The Filesystem.

While the owner of a file is always a single person, many people may be group owners of the file, so long as they are all part of a single UNIX group. Groups are defined in the /etc/group file.

See page 79 for more information about groups.

The owner of a file gets to specify what the group owners can do with it. This scheme ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Unix® and Linux® System Administration Handbook, Fourth Edition

Unix® and Linux® System Administration Handbook, Fourth Edition

Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein, Ben Whaley
Linux System Administration

Linux System Administration

Tom Adelstein, Bill Lubanovic
Mastering Linux Administration

Mastering Linux Administration

Alexandru Calcatinge, Julian Balog

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780137002740Purchase book