Section 3.27. Groups

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3.27. Groups

Now that you've read about file permissions, it's time to see how they can come in handy. Recall that the "heart.final" file's user and group names were "glass" and "cs," respectively, inherited from my login shell:

$ ls -l heart.final -rw-r--r--  1  glass  cs   213  Jan 31 00:12 heart.final $ _ 

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The original permission flags allow anyone to read it but only the owner to write it. What I really wanted to do was to set up a new group called "music" and allow anyone in the "music" group to read my work. I, the owner, would retain read and write permissions, and anyone else would be denied all access rights.

The only way to create a new group is to ask the system administrator to add it. The actual way that a new group is added is described in Chapter 14, "System Administration." After a new group is added, any user who wants to be a part of that group must also ask the system administrator. At this time, I mailed a request to the system administrator for a new "music" group and asked for myself and my friend Tim to be added to the group. When I received a confirmation of the request, it was time to update my file attributes.