Changing file permissions

[Carla Breuer]

Hello All!
I have a very simple request for a sysadmin. I need to change the permission on a file form -rw-r--r-- to -rwxrwxrwx. I read the man pages on chmod and came up with:

sys000#chmod a+x myfile

Is this correct? I am running HPUX 11.0

Thanx,

Carla

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

I always use the numeric syntax for permissions. To change a file to -rwxrwxrwx you would use the following:

# chmod 777 myfile

You get the 777 by:

4=read permission
2=write permission
1=execute permission

Add them together and you get 7, so 777 for owner, group and world users.

Make sense?

[Pete Randall]

Actually you would need chmod a+wx or chmod 777 to do what you desire.


Pete

[Tom Maloy]

Not correct. Adding just x permission will result in -rwxr-xr-x. You could use

chmod a+wx myfile

to cover both write and execute permission.

[Paul Sperry]

chmod 777 file

or

chmod ugo+r+w+x file

[Dario_1]

Carla:

I will use

chmod 777 filename

Regards,

DR

[Bill Hassell]

BIG RED FLAG: Why do you need rwxrwxrwx permissions? This is a very typical begginer's error when some message like permission denied shows up. The rwx permission for everyone means that this file is a script or interpreted language file (is it?) because data files should never be executable! And the w in the last rwx triplet means that the contents are worthless! Read that twice! By allowing the file to be writable by anyone on the system to destroy the contents of the file.

Far too often, Unix for Beginners books and courses will blindly tell newbies that 777 (or rwxrwxrwx) permissions solve problems, when just the opposite is true. Never allow any important file to be writable for eveeryone on the system.

[Carla Breuer]

This is a print driver I am setting up in my newly arrived L1000 aka rp5400. I looked at the print driver in the production system and the driver has the permissions I was asking for above. I just went into vi and created this one in the new machine and need it to have the same permissions. I am playing with my new machine. The guys setting up my system didn't copy any of the drivers over and few other pieces I need to get printing. I am finding all the pieces they missed. It's a lot of fun! Hopefully Bill will put the red flag away now. LOL

I will be assigning points to all shortly!

Thanx,

Carla

[Kelli Ward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't 666 permisions -rw-rw-rw- sufficient?
Just curious,
Kel

[Carla Breuer]

Thank you all so very much! I am printing on the new machine. YEAH!!! Kelly, my machine gave me an error stating that the print driver must have executable permissions. After changing the permissions to 777 (to match the production server) all is well. I do have other drivers with different permissions on them, but they all have executable for all in the permissions. I guess we need a new thread to find out what are the least amount of permissions to give to a print driver???

[Patrick Wallek]

I would try permissions of 555 or 755 on the print driver. There should be no reason that anyone would need to write to it.

# chmod 555 filename

would give -r-xr-xr-x permission

# chmod 755 filename

would give -rwxr-xr-x permissions