VOOZH about

URL: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-linux-permissions

⇱ An Introduction to Linux Permissions | DigitalOcean

An Introduction to Linux Permissions

Updated on June 3, 2022
👁 An Introduction to Linux Permissions

Introduction

Linux is, by definition, a multi-user OS that is based on the Unix concepts of file ownership and permissions to provide security at the file system level. To reliably administer a cloud server, it is essential that you have a decent understanding of how ownership and permissions work. There are many intricacies of dealing with file ownership and permissions, but this tutorial will provide a good introduction.

This tutorial will cover how to view and understand Linux ownership and permissions. If you are looking for a tutorial on how to modify permissions, you can read Linux Permissions Basics and How to Use Umask on a VPS.

Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases.

Learn more about our products

Tutorial Series: Getting Started with Linux

If you are new to Linux and its command line interface, it may seem like a daunting task to get started with it. This series will bring you up to speed with essential Linux basics, and provide a solid foundation for working with Linux servers. If you have little to no knowledge about using Linux, this is where you will want to start.

About the author

Software Engineer @ DigitalOcean. Former Señor Technical Writer (I no longer update articles or respond to comments). Expertise in areas including Ubuntu, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and more.

Still looking for an answer?

Was this helpful?

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

I love this tutorials!! Thank you!

This comment has been deleted

Thank you very much! I like what you wrote!

Nice concise article. Helped me.

Whenever you are dealing with permissions, you should also note Attributes. I’ve written a small tutorial on the matter:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/what-are-file-directory-attributes

👁 Creative Commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

  • Deploy on DigitalOcean

    Click below to sign up for DigitalOcean's virtual machines, Databases, and AIML products.

Become a contributor for community

Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.

DigitalOcean Documentation

Full documentation for every DigitalOcean product.

Resources for startups and AI-native businesses

The Wave has everything you need to know about building a business, from raising funding to marketing your product.

Get our newsletter

Stay up to date by signing up for DigitalOcean’s Infrastructure as a Newsletter.

New accounts only. By submitting your email you agree to our Privacy Policy

The developer cloud

Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.

Start building today

From GPU-powered inference and Kubernetes to managed databases and storage, get everything you need to build, scale, and deploy intelligent applications.

© 2026 DigitalOcean, LLC.Sitemap.
Dark mode is coming soon.