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Is the group 'others' required for file permissions? Aren't 'user' and 'group' only groups try to read/write/execute file at any given moment?

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  • All who is not defined in groups | users.
    – An0n
    Feb 25, 2018 at 18:12

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Others is not technically a group. Other is everyone that is not the owner or in the group. For example, if you have a file that is root:root then root is the owner, users/processes in the root group have group permissions, and you are treated as other.

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  • Hence, are those who have not created the file or those who have not been given ownership of the file or those who are not in group called as others?
    – Prem
    Feb 25, 2018 at 18:25
  • yes. those not the owner or in the group named are others
    – ravery
    Feb 25, 2018 at 18:26
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File permissions are categorized into three sections:

  • the owner of a file may do something with the file (read/write/execute)
  • members of a group may do something with the file (read/write/execute)
  • others (everybody else) may do something with the file (read/write/execute)

With the chmod and chown commands we can change mode (access rights) and ownership of a file.

  • Ownership means who (which user and which group) owns the file
  • access mode means what they can do with that file

A file with mode

-rwxr-xr-- alice users ....

can be

  • read, written, and executed (first three rwx) by the user alice
  • read and executed (second three r-x) by all members of the group users
  • just read (third three r--) by all other users

So others simply means everybody that is not (necessarily) the owner or group-member of a file.

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