UNIX File Permissions

jerardfjay · #1 (**permalink**) 03-15-2005

Hello,

What does the following mean in terms of file permissions.

-rw-rwSrw- 1 owner group 999 May 25 2004 file_name

What does the "S" stand for.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Perderabo · #2 (**permalink**) 03-15-2005

That S stands for "set gid", which was originally the only use of that bit. In octal the permission bits are 2666. But the "set gid" concept is useless here because no execute bits are set. When file locking was added to unix, this combo of bits was used to indicate enforcement mode. So enforcement mode file locking is enabled for this file. See "man lockf".

jerardfjay · #3 (**permalink**) 03-15-2005

Perderabo,

Thank you. This type of permission is used in an environment on a file that is like a type of configuration file for another process.

When I perform a

ps -ef | grep (config_file)

I get two processes that are using this configuration file while daemonising themselves. Does this have any significance at all if the file permissions are used in this manner or does it really matter. Thanks

Perderabo · #4 (**permalink**) 03-15-2005

Like I said, it turns on enforcement mode file locking.

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