Deny multiple users access to files

[Matt Rieman]

Hi,

What's an easy way to deny multiple users access to certain files, and then giving them access again, all without having to make changes to each user?

Thanks

[Jeff Schussele · Accepted solution]

Create a group that none of the users belongs to.
groupadd -g xxx grpname
where xxx is a unique group ID
Change the group ownership on the file to this group
chgrp grpname file_names
& remove group priviledges from the file
chmod 600 file_names

Then just reverse this when you want to give them access back.

Hint: It would be simpler if all these files were in a specific directory. Then you could just change the perms on the dir.

Rgds,
Jeff