Setting Folder permissions

I have several (4) financial files that I wish to protect. I would
like to give them root access only read, write etc. If possible I
would like to password protect them. I've read about chmod/chown and
now I'm even more confused.

Help!

Adriann

2 ways that I do it

Create a users and a password and move those files to that dummy user, su user to get them back - probably wont work for you though

Use GnuPG - man GnuPG then man gpg. I can't remember how exactly it is done but it is something like so...

gpg --gen-key          #answer a bunch of questions
gpg -r (uid-from prev command) -e (file-to-encrypt)
gpg -r (uid) -d (encrypted-file-name.gpg) > encrypted-file-name

Make sure to test this out before you try on an actual file.

You can make a new user(as accessrichard mentioned) or give the files to root.

Do the following:
$chown root:root file
$chmod 400 file

chown - this will give ownership to root, you can give to anyone else like this dummy_user:users(where dummy_user i username and users i a usergroup)

chmod - will setup the permission so the file can be read by the root and no one else. Use the man pages to learn more about this.