Is it possible to grant write privileges to a user on a directory with out having to add the user to a group or make the user the owner of the directory?

My background is in Windows and in Windows you can grant specific privileges to a user without having to put the user in a group or making the user the owner of the object.

I'm completely new to UNIX, so I apologize if this is a stupid question.

yes you can chmod +w on your file but that makes it writeable to all other users. its better off to do it on a group basis. make the directory writeable to the owner and users of the certain group only. it makes more sense this way, instead of specifying users indivdually, which can get tedious...fast.

For the task you are trying to accomplish, you should probably used extended ACL(s).

Give some directory named ick, before adding an additional ACL:

$ ls -ld ick
-rwx------ 1 kduffin sysadmin 328 Jun 25 15:53 ick

To add the ACL for a user named keith:

$ setfacl -m u:keith:rwx,m:rwx ick

You can tell that there is an ACL by the plus sign on the listing now:

$ ls -ld ick
-rwx------+ 1 kduffin sysadmin 328 Jun 25 15:53 ick

You can see the assigned ACL(s) using getfacl

$ getfacl ick

user::rwx
user:keith:rwx #effective:rwx
group::--- #effective:---
mask:---
other:---

Hope this helps. Anytime I add extended ACL(s), I will typically add them to a script as will (setperms) so that I can quickly reset ACL(s) in the event of file or directory removal.

Cheers,

Keith

Thanks for the info Keith. That's exactly what I was looking for.