Permissions - Overview

Permissions in unix are integral part of the operating system.

You can see the details of a file using ls -la command:

ls -la myfile

And you can see the details of all files in current directory by using:

ls -la

Every file has a owner (also referred as user), a group and permissions. A user can be part of many groups. A group can have many users.

The permission attributes of a file signify who can do what.