hopefully simple question

gargunkle · 11-10-2011, 08:12 PM

I am using Scientific Linux 6.1. I've never seen this particular behavior before switching to Linux from FreeBSD.

"ls -l" of some items lists a period after the permissions. Here are some examples of both files and directories:

-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 366087056 Nov 10 20:30 video1.avi
-rw-r--r--. 1 user user 372620148 Sep 26 23:19 video2.avi

drwxr-xr-x. 2 user user 4096 Nov 7 09:49 dir1
drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Nov 8 13:59 dir2

In each case, what does the period after permissions for "other" mean? I didn't find anything about it in the "chmod" or "ls" manpages (but maybe I overlooked it)...

Not a problem but deathly curious.
Thanks!!

David the H. · 11-10-2011, 08:34 PM

It's explained in the info page:

Code:

Following the file mode bits is a single character that specifies
whether an alternate access method such as an access control list
applies to the file.  When the character following the file mode
bits is a space, there is no alternate access method.  When it is
a printing character, then there is such a method.

GNU `ls' uses a `.' character to indicate a file with an SELinux
security context, but no other alternate access method.

A file with any other combination of alternate access methods is
marked with a `+' character.

gargunkle · 11-10-2011, 08:37 PM

Thank you very much!!

(I still don't entirely understand the implication, but at least I know what to read next to find out.)