Questions tagged [permissions]

Short for "file system permissions" - access control based on user, group, or global access.

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165 votes
10 answers
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How do I use 'chmod' on an NTFS (or FAT32) partition?

I have a script that I need to execute on an NTFS partition. The script's permission is set to 600. I attempted to modify the permissions by running chmod 755 script.sh, which doesn't report a ...
Nathan Osman's user avatar
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72 votes
12 answers
61k views

What if I accidentally run command "chmod -R" on system directories (/, /etc, ...)

I accidently ran sudo chmod 755 -R / instead of sudo chmod 755 -R ./ I stopped it after a few seconds, but now I'm starting to have problems. For example, sudo isn't working anymore: sudo: must be ...
fl00r's user avatar
  • 1,393
69 votes
5 answers
79k views

How do I add myself back as a sudo user?

I clean-installed Ubuntu 11.10 today, and then installed VirtualBox. This required me to add myself to the vboxusers group, and since 11.10 seems to no longer have a graphical app to add users to a ...
Stéphane's user avatar
  • 2,526
53 votes
8 answers
319k views

How do I get permissions to edit system configuration files?

I can't seem to edit and save config files in the root system (eg: /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.config); it just says "permission denied" or the save option is blocked in the text editor. I'm pretty sure I'm a ...
Matthew Wilson's user avatar
477 votes
8 answers
1.3m views

How do I change my username?

Some time ago, when I installed Ubuntu, I chose a rather stupid username for my account that I do not want to use anymore. How do I change this (including the name of my home directory, and the name ...
Takkat's user avatar
  • 142k
27 votes
5 answers
23k views

How to get access to USB-storage from an application installed as Snap?

I have Ubuntu 18.04 LTS installed. I inserted USB-flash to my laptop. It was automounted to /media/username/DISKLABEL and opened in Nautilus. I can read and write objects to it. How can I access it ...
N0rbert's user avatar
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166 votes
8 answers
332k views

Whats the simplest way to edit and add files to "/var/www"?

Having installed the web server is there a simple way to set a user able to use the graphic interface to copy files and directories to the local web server /var/www I gave myself administrative ...
k_graham's user avatar
  • 1,761
762 votes
9 answers
3.7m views

Change folder permissions and ownership

I would like the user to have full rights on this folder (as well as all sub-directories and files in it): ~/.blabla currently owned by root. I have found numerous posts (in this forum and ...
user2413's user avatar
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53 votes
2 answers
61k views

How do file permissions work?

Can you explain briefly the main concepts and command line tools used to manage file permissions?
guillermooo's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
15k views

Set myself as owner of /etc with chown command now getting all kinds of errors

I needed to edit a .config file (which I know for a fact is not creating these problems, just to clear that up) and it wouldn't let me save it, so I took ownership of /etc and all contents with the ...
Raf's user avatar
  • 91
24 votes
7 answers
41k views

How do I set up a folder so that anything created in it inherits permissions?

I have a /data folder (actually a partition) for all data that should be accessible by all users (in this case family members). We all have individual user accounts and are often all logged in at any ...
steevc's user avatar
  • 857
36 votes
6 answers
28k views

Under what license is Ubuntu? Can it be legally modified and distributed?

What license does Ubuntu fall into (GPL, MIT, a mix)? Would it be legal to modify it and redistribute my modified version?
Weboide's user avatar
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237 votes
7 answers
487k views

What is "umask" and how does it work?

I believe that umask is something that controls file permissions, but do not fully understand it. After running umask 0644 in a terminal, I cannot read the files I create with the command-line text ...
Lekensteyn's user avatar
  • 174k
96 votes
16 answers
429k views

"Welcome to emergency mode!" Think it is a fsck problem

My computer booted to a black screen with this error message. Welcome to emergency mode! After logging in,type "journalctl -xb" to view system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, "systemctl ...
Kim André's user avatar
  • 1,165
80 votes
2 answers
67k views

Why shouldn't /var/www have chmod 777

When developing a page on a localhost, I sometimes get a "Permission denied" error which I can solve by running chmod -R 777 /var/www. However, people are telling me that this is a bad idea for ...
Luis Alvarado's user avatar
27 votes
3 answers
43k views

Accessing files in a directory without x-permission?

I am having a bit of trouble understanding what the execute permission means for directories. Do I understand it correctly that anything in a directory for which a user does not have x-rights is ...
Leo's user avatar
  • 1,775
148 votes
7 answers
1.3m views

How to make read-only file system writable?

At some point, the filesystem on my digital audio player has become read-only. I cannot copy files into it or remove files on it. Are there some possible reasons for the player's file system to ...
Tim's user avatar
  • 25.1k
2 votes
1 answer
3k views

Setting up SFTP to log in to server with Filezilla and access files outside my home directory

I have an ec2 instance on AWS which already installed a few Wordpress-es in it. I want to set things up to let more people handle their own projects, with me also being able to go into the server ...
Dora's user avatar
  • 445
47 votes
3 answers
47k views

permission error when installing ttf-mscorefonts-installer/Can't drop privileges as file couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'

I wanted to install the Microsoft fonts on 16.04 and ran the command below, but there are many errors (or only warnings?) about that the user _apt has no permissions on the downloaded .exe files. ...
Byte Commander's user avatar
  • 107k
162 votes
6 answers
271k views

What does this apt error message ("Download is performed unsandboxed as root...") mean?

I get it after updating in Synaptic Manager I recently did a clean install of Ubuntu 17.04 from 16.10. error message:- W: Download is performed unsandboxed as root as file '/var/cache/apt/archives/...
Julian Arthurs's user avatar
52 votes
5 answers
315k views

How to fix external hard disk READ ONLY?

I have got an external hard disk TOSHIBA 1TB USB 3, the permission is always READ ONLY. fdisk -l (output) : Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, ...
moata_u's user avatar
  • 5,403
49 votes
6 answers
190k views

Change owner of internal hard drive partition from root to user

I have a number of drives internal and external. Some are partitioned. Most mount automatically at boot (all did at one point). One partition is owned by root and therefore does not mount ...
Charles Kane's user avatar
283 votes
22 answers
1.9m views

SSH Permission denied (publickey)

I am trying to connect to a Linode (running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) from my local machine (also running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) I have created a private and public key on my local machine and copied my public ...
Pattle's user avatar
  • 2,969
117 votes
4 answers
236k views

How do I run wireshark, with root-privileges?

A standard installation of Wireshark doesn't give the program permission to access the network interface. I suppose I have to run the program with sudo, but do not know how to add it to the icon - ...
Sven AA's user avatar
  • 1,173
44 votes
5 answers
49k views

How to NOT become a root user? Are administrators root?

I installed Ubuntu on my PC. To log in, I use the username and password I created during installation. Does this mean I am a root user? If yes, then how do I become non-root? It looks like non-root ...
FirstName LastName's user avatar
18 votes
6 answers
84k views

How to fix sudo after "chmod -R 777 /usr/bin"?

I entered chmod -R 777 /usr/bin and now sudo is not working. It says sudo must be setuid root. Some advice online said to run chown root:root /usr/bin/sudo chmod 4755 /usr/bin/sudo. On entering ...
Manojkumar's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
13k views

.exe file permission fail

I'm trying to run a exe file that is located on my Vista partition, when I browse to the file and try to change the file to run as executable the tick box unticks itself right after i tick it, i tried ...
Zabadda's user avatar
  • 260
170 votes
4 answers
864k views

How do I grant sudo privileges to an existing user? [duplicate]

I want to grant a newly created user sudo privileges in Ubuntu. I tried sudo adduser hduser admin but it says no admin group exists. How can I do it?
saket's user avatar
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65 votes
6 answers
83k views

Is `sudo pip install` still a broken practice?

I'm new to Ubuntu, so please bear with me. I installed pip using this command: sudo apt-get -y install python-pip. Then I installed NLTK using the command on their website, which was: sudo pip install ...
whatwhatwhat's user avatar
56 votes
4 answers
22k views

How is being able to break into any Linux machine through grub2 secure?

How is the ability of a person who gained physical access to your computer to get root with those steps in any way secure? When grub2 menu opens press e to edit the Linux start options Change: "...
Clutchy's user avatar
  • 705
56 votes
7 answers
46k views

Why can other users see the files in my home folder?

I just added a new, underprivileged "desktop user," and I was surprised to discover that it can see the files in my home folder. What is the rational for setting up such lax permissions?
ændrük's user avatar
  • 76.6k
27 votes
3 answers
201k views

"You are not the owner..." message when trying to access folder

In the properties menu of this folder the permission is set to "root" user and group, it shows the message "you are not the owner, so you cannot change these permissions." I am indeed the owner and ...
Stéphan Constantial's user avatar
278 votes
11 answers
396k views

can't login as mysql user root from normal user account in ubuntu 16.04

I just installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS along with the packages php, mariadb and nginx. I ran mysql_secure_installation and changed the root password. Now when I try to login to mysql using the root ...
codescope's user avatar
  • 2,881
68 votes
5 answers
336k views

Changing permissions on serial port

I'm using the Arduino IDE in Ubuntu, and am having issues with the serial port. It has worked in the past, but for reasons that may be unnecesary, I felt the need to change the ownership of some of ...
Terrik's user avatar
  • 793
38 votes
4 answers
101k views

Mount NTFS partition at startup, with non-root user as owner

I'm currently mounting an NTFS partition at startup using the following line in /etc/fstab: /dev/sda3 /media/data ntfs nls=iso8859-1,umask=000 To my Ubuntu 11.10 installation, ...
Tomas Aschan's user avatar
  • 2,922
30 votes
3 answers
44k views

Why can't snap files be modified in any way?

I have been trying for a long time to change Blender's icon, but no matter what I do, I am not allowed to edit anything in /snap/blender-tpaw/3/. Here's what I tried: Editing the files from nautilus ...
Tooniis's user avatar
  • 1,572
19 votes
1 answer
49k views

How can I share a directory with an another user?

I don't want the shared folder to be accessible by anyone on the system, I want it to be accessible just to a restricted set of users. How to I do that?
Emanuele's user avatar
  • 193
4 votes
1 answer
6k views

First full backup on USB: Permission denied

I am new to Ubuntu 13.04. I am trying to do a full backup to my USB and I have used GParted to create a partition on my USB and formatted it as ext4. It still has permission denied errors. I get ...
user178487's user avatar
510 votes
7 answers
516k views

How can I get octal file permissions from command line?

There is a chmod command to set file permissions, but can I get file permissions in octal mode (such as 755) from the command line?
Anwar's user avatar
  • 76.6k
229 votes
5 answers
334k views

Why doesn't `sudo cd /var/named` work? [duplicate]

I want to cd into /var/named but it gives me a permission denied error, and when I want to use sudo to do this I am not permitted. What is the technical reason for this, and is it possible to do this ...
Hojat Taheri's user avatar
  • 5,399
112 votes
6 answers
488k views

Use chown to set the ownership of all a folder's subfolders and files?

How can I use the chown command to change the ownership of all a folder's subfolders and files?
TellMeWhy's user avatar
  • 17.5k
80 votes
1 answer
488k views

Changing Ownership: "Operation not permitted" - even as root!

I am trying to help a user solve an issue with a bootable USB drive, but there seems to be a file whose ownership cannot be edited. I thought it would have been possible with: sudo chown user:user ...
David's user avatar
  • 3,367
65 votes
3 answers
349k views

Permissions problems with /var/www/html and my own home directory for a website document root

I'm trying to not give 777 permission in my /var/www/html folder, but I want to edit my files without sudo. So I thought to create a symlink of a folder in my home directory within /var/www/html. I ...
André Carvalho's user avatar
46 votes
2 answers
50k views

Adding user to a group - Why had to reboot?

I was not able to access the VirtualBox shared folder, so I made the user part of the vboxsf group. But, still not able to access it. Rebooting the guest resolved the problem. Is it a bug? A reboot is ...
Praveen Sripati's user avatar
21 votes
1 answer
83k views

Correct way of mounting a Windows share

I mounted a Windows share to my Ubuntu 11.10 system via adding the following line to the /etc/fstab: //serveraddr/sharedfolder /mnt/foldername/ smbfs credentials=/home/myname/.smbpasswd 0 0 using ...
petrichor's user avatar
  • 1,157
13 votes
2 answers
26k views

How can I restrict program access to other users?

I'm setting up a new user account, and I want to allow access to only certain programs for just that account. How would I go around doing that?
Lyrositor's user avatar
  • 1,018
12 votes
2 answers
15k views

How to get permissions to execute programs from NTFS hard drive?

I have this problem: I'm used to compile and run .c files with CodeBlocks. If I do that from my Desktop (ext4 partition) it works without problems, but doing this from my secondary hard drive (NTFS ...
Frank's user avatar
  • 1,523
3 votes
1 answer
27k views

Permission denied when trying to run a script that uses 'sshpass'

The idea is to make this script run without needing to type any passwords of the hosts (written down in the Hosts.txt file). Right now, when I'm running this, I get a Permission denied, please try ...
Ludvig's user avatar
  • 165
83 votes
3 answers
72k views

What is the difference between the 'sudo' and 'admin' group?

I noticed that two groups are granted similar-looking permissions in /etc/sudoers: # Members of the admin group may gain root privileges %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL # Allow members of group sudo to execute ...
ændrük's user avatar
  • 76.6k
55 votes
5 answers
348k views

Mount USB drive with write permissions for everyone or specific user

I know there are similar questions but I get some specific problem I can't overcome. I have: HDD split into two partitions. /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb2. sdb1 is NTFS and I don't need it. I need sdb2 ...
GeekSince1982's user avatar

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