Ubuntu Server 8: Managing users & groups: How to?

[Smoot Carl-Mitchell]

On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 19:37 -0500, Robert Dailey wrote:

> What's the reason for 9 digits in the access rights string? I'm
> assuming the first 3 digits are access rights for the owner (user) and
> the second 3 digits are for group rights. I'm not sure what the final
> 3 could be for. Am I close?

Last 3 are permissions for "other" e.g. everyone else who is not the
owner of the file or in the group.

In fact there are 3 extra bits in the permissions.  1 is the setuid bit
which allows an executable to be run with the access permissions of the
owner of the executable.  There is a setgid bit which allows the
executable to be run with the permissions of the group.  The 3rd bit is
harder to explain and is not relevant to this thread.  See the 'chmod'
manual page for a quick explanation of the permission bits.
-- 
Smoot Carl-Mitchell
System/Network Architect
smoot at tic.com
+1 480 922 7313
cell: +1 602 421 9005