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Numerically you can take away w from group, add x to other, add s to user and other things all at once in one command where with + and - would take multiple commands.
add them together and you get the setting in order of: owner, group, else
So 755 is (1+2+4)owner, 7 who can do all three... group and world only have 5, readable and executable, 1+4.
If you're using a fourth number that first one refers to the sticky bit, a setting of 4 makes it so that the file, when executed, runs as the owner, not the user that executed the file. There are a bunch of stick-bit settings and I don't remember them all, but needless to say a file that is 4777 and is owned by root is a nuclear bomb because anyone can write the file and then execute it as root.
wdingus- so I can understand what I'm doing. I'm used to working w/ numeric values however the docs for the app I'm working w/ are all u+s etc. I dont want to chmod x+x 100 files if they are already chmod'd correctly.
finegan- ahh thanks for the explanation of sticky bit that helps alot. In this case 4755 is owned by the app.
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