I am new in using linux but i have managed to setup 5 thin clients which connect to the linux server. The question i have is how do i let users log on to the server but with limited acess to certain files and programs. So far when a user logs on to the server that user still seems to have all privilages such as the root.

What i would like is to set a group like students and all the users under students have limited access to programs and files. please be easy on me and explain thing s to me simple so i can get this to work i have been with windows for over 10 years an now am coming to linux so there are many things i do not know how to do.

Thank you

Under linux, by default, when you add a new user, he has limited permissions. This is what you want.

To check what permissions user "joe" has on file (or directory) "filename", do the following :

first, determine what groups joe belongs to. To do that, type
It will return a (possibly empty) list of groups, like "joe : users cdrom audio video"

then, determine what ownership and permissions are put on file "filename". To do that, type
That will return something like
here you read that "filename" is owned by user "joe" and by group "users".
the sequence "rwxr-xr-x" tells you the permissions. The first 3 letters are the permissions of the owner (here joe), the 3 next letters are the permissions of every other member of the group (here the members of the group "users"), and the 3 last are the permissions of all other users.
r means read, w means write, x means execute for a standard file, and traverse for a directory.

You can also read that in a graphical file browser like konqueror.

If all your users have the same permissions as root, that's very, very bad !