Linux Permissions Guide: Everything You Need to Know

Linux has different security permissions, each impacting what can be done with a file and a directory.

There are different file permissions on Linux and in distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora. Each permission can specify who can access a file or a directory. It's often critical for the security of your operating system. You can view the permissions by using a terminal, which is why it is important to understand the permissions and what they mean. In this guide, we'll dive into it for you.

Before diving into permissions, we need to talk about ownership on Linux. There are three things you need to know about, especially on multi-user systems. First, there's the user who created and owns the file (ownership can be changed). There's the group, which can be assigned to several users by system admins to help manage file permissions more easily. By default, Ubuntu and other Linux distributions might assign a group as same as the user. Finally, we have "other," which is simply anybody with access to the system or all the users on the system.

There are two things you'll notice on Linux when handling documents and other items. There are files and there are directories, like your desktop. Each one of these files and directories has different permissions: read, write, or execute. We highlighted what this means for you in the table below. Do note that the meanings are different when working inside a directory or with a file itself.