osf1 umask man page on unix.com

umask(1) General Commands Manual umask(1)

NAME
umask - Displays or sets the file mode creation mask

SYNOPSIS
umask [-S] [mask]

Note

The C shell has a built-in version of the umask command. If you are using the C shell, and want to guarantee that you are using the com-
mand described here, you must specify the full path /usr/bin/umask. See the csh(1) reference page for a description of the built-in com-
mand.

STANDARDS
Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:

umask: XCU5.0

Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.

OPTIONS
Produce symbolic output.

Output is produced in a format that is recognized on a subsequent invocation of umask as a mask operand to restore the previous file
mode creation mask.

If the -S option is not used, output is displayed as an octal integer, but is still usable as input on a subsequent invocation of the umask
command.

OPERANDS
A string specifying the new file mode creation mask. This string may may be an octal value or a symbolic_mode value.

For a symbolic_mode value, the new value of the file mode creation mask is the logical complement of the file permission bits por-
tion of the file mode specified by the symbolic_mode string.

In a symbolic_mode value, the characters + and - are interpreted relative to the current file mode creation mask; + causes the bits
for the indicated permissions to be cleared in the mask; - causes the bits for the indicated permissions to be set in the mask.

The file mode creation mask is set to the resulting numeric value.

In the obsolescent octal integer form of mode, the specified bits are set in the file mode creation mask.

DESCRIPTION
The umask command sets the file mode creation mask of the current shell execution environment to the value specified by the mask oper-
and. This mask affects the initial value of the file permission bits of subsequently created files.

If the mask operand is not specified, the umask command writes the value of the invoking process's file mode creation mask to standard out-
put.

If the -S option is specified, the output is in the following format:

"u=%s,g=%s,o=%s
", <owner permissions>, <group permissions>, <other permissions>"

The three values are combinations of letters from the set {r, w, x}; the presence of a letter indicates that the corresponding bit is clear
in the file mode creation mask.

NOTES
Any mask operand such as -r, -w, -x, or anything beginning with a hyphen, must be preceded by -- to keep it from being interpreted as a
option. Since umask affects the current shell execution environment, it is provided as a shell regular built-in. In contrast to the nega-
tive permission logic provided by the file mode creation mask and the octal number form of the mask argument, the symbolic form of the mask
operand specifies those permissions that are left alone. Although the references to octal modes are obsolescent in the ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993
standard, they are maintained for portable applications until further notice.

RESTRICTIONS
If umask is called in a subshell or separate utility execution environment, it does not affect the file mode creation mask of the caller's
environment. A separate execution environment could be one of the following:

(umask 002) nohup umask ... find . -exec umask ... ;

EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned: The file mode creation mask was successfully changed, or no mask operand was supplied. An error
occurred.

EXAMPLES
To set the file mode creation mask so that subsequently created files have their write by all others bit cleared, enter either of the fol-
lowing commands: umask a=rx,ug+w umask 002 If the file mode creation mask was set with either of the above commands, the umask command can
be used to write out the current value of the mask. To write the value in octal format, enter: umask

This provides the output: 0002

To write the value in symbolic format, enter: umask -S

This provides the output: u=rwx,g=rwx,o=rx The following sequence of commands is an example of how to save the current file mode
creation mask and later restore the value using the umask command and octal integer formats. Examine the current value of the mask:
umask

The current mask is reported as: 022 Save the current value, and verify the saved value: SAVEMASK =`umask` echo $SAVEMASK

The saved value is reported as: 022 Change the current mask: umask 444 Verify the change: umask The new mask is reported: 0444
Restore the previous mask: umask $SAVEMASK Verify the restored value: umask

The value is now restored: 022

The following sequence of commands is an example of how to save the current file mode creation mask and later restore the value
using the umask command and symbolic_mode formats. Examine the current value of the mask: umask -S

The current mask is reported as: u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx Save the current value, and verify the saved value: SAVEMASK=`umask -S` echo $SAVE-
MASK

The saved value is reported as: u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx Change the current mask: umask a= Verify the change: umask -S The new mask is
reported: u=,g=,o= Restore the previous mask: umask $SAVEMASK Verify the restored value: umask -S

The value is now restored: u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx

To set the file mode creation mask so that subsequently created files have all their write bits cleared, enter: umask -- -w

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables affect the execution of umask: Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are
unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used. If any of the internationalization vari-
ables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty string value,
overrides the values of all the other internationalization variables. Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes
of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multibyte characters in arguments). Determines the locale for the for-
mat and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of
LC_MESSAGES.

osf1 man page for umask