ok, all i want is a directory to which users who are members of a group can all write and write to each other's files (so like a public directory).

in addition, i would like to keep the slackware's 022 umask value.

one of the things i thought might be able to do it acls. i was almost there with it but even though i set the default mask value to rwx, newly created files get the effective permissions which are same as using the 022 umask. i don't really see the point of acls for newly created files... the effective mask is applied before the default acl permissions rendering the default permissions useless (sort of).

anyway, the only way to do what i want is to maybe run a samba service and get the users to use the directory through samba (where i'd set more relaxed umasks) so similar approach.

so, is there a way to do this in an easy way?

note: i'd classify using acls the easy way as long as i could stop it from making the effective masks

To share files with the other users -- the members of users group -- I prepared a common directory and changed it's rights to 775. When I put there some file and I want to able the other users to write to it I change it's rights to 664. The other users do the same. It isn't the perfect solution but in my case it works well.

I have an hourly cron job on the file server as so:
This way anyone in "group" can write to the shared "filedir" & everyone can read it. The permissions are not right between the time the file is written & the cron job runs. An hour works OK in my case, you may have to shorten the time.
Regards,
Bill

That's why.

is it dangerous to change the umask to 002? i'd only do it for a couple of users that need to share the files.

In order to give members of your group change permissions in Windows, you must give at least rxwrwx--- to that file. That is, execution permissions on that file.

The best solution to get the correct permissions for all group members is to create a directory, and set the setgid bit on that directory. Then every file in that directory will inherit the permissions from that directory when it is created.

It is by far the easiest solution for such a shared drive.

You set the setgid bit by:
The directory shows up like
drwxrwS---

Note the lower case 's' . An capital 'S' means rwxrw---- (without 'X') on the directory. A lower case 's' means rwxrwx--- plus 's'

jlinkels

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes it is dangerous, unless done right. Everyone who uses 002 needs to have a unique primary group. Otherwise, files they create will be writable by others that should not have write access.

but other users cannot write to files if the user creating the file has a umask of 022 (slackware default).

Acl's are over kill, I think. A combination of permissions should do the trick.