Unix File Permissions Essay Example

UNIX File Permissions This paper will discuss user accessibility to files as well as the protection scheme on a UNIX system. The roles of Unix system users as well as groups will be discussed relative to file accessibility; as well as discussing specifics of granting file accessibility to 4990 users from a group of 5000 users. Users A UNIX system serves many users. Users are an abstraction that denotes a logical entity for assignment of ownership and operation privileges over the system. A user may correspond to a real-world person, but also a type of system operation. So, in my system, I have user 'nick' that corresponds to me, but I also have user 'www' which corresponds to the privileges necessary to operate the local webserver ("Understanding Unix Permissions And Chmod", 2008). Groups Users can be organized in groups. A user may belong to one or more groups of users. The concept of groups serves the purpose of assigning sets of privileges for a given resource and sharing them among many users that need to have them ("Understanding Unix Permissions And Chmod", 2008). Scenario In a hypothetical scenario where we have 5000 users and we seek to grant 4990 of those uses access to a file, granting this sort of protection scheme using Unix could be achieved a few different ways, some of which would include: • Each of the 4,990 users can be added to a ‘group”, and then utilize the allow access to the file by that group. • Create an Access Control List (ACL) and assign access according to that list. • Specify a group of users that cannot access the file and allow any user not on the list to have access. • Password protect the file and give the password to users that are allowed access to the file. In both large and small enterprises, the need may frequently arise to allow access of a file, or files to a select group. The ability to grant this sort of protection scheme using