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linux-users-groups-permissions-cheatsheet.md

Linux users/groups/permissions cheatsheet

See a file's ownership and permissions with ls -a

Add user

$ sudo useradd -m peter
$ sudo passwd peter

$ groupadd myAppUsers

$ sudo usermod -a -G peter myAppUsers

adduser and addgroup are interactive convenience scripts that wrap the useradd and groupadd commands.

Get information about a user, including the user's group memberships

$ id
$ id peter

List groups

$ groups
$ groups peter

File permissions

List files, showing permissions and ownership information

ls -l

Permissions are course grained, and set for exactly 3 scopes: owner, groups and others (global)

chmod u=rwx,g=rwx,o=rwx myFile.txt
chmod 777 myFile.txt

TODO: setfacl - for working with ACLs

Change ownership of a file

$ chown peter myFile.txt
$ chgrp myAppUsers myFile.txt

Execute a command with elevated rights elevated

$ sudo commandname

su - switch user

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