03-20-2008, 08:59 AM

Hello

I was wondering if anyone knows what the @ symbol means on a files permission.
example: -rw-rw-rw-@

I know what the r, w, x, and d means on file permissions but I don't know what the @ symbol means.

Thanks

03-20-2008, 09:19 AM

Yep...

If the file or directory has extended attributes, the permissions field printed by the -l option is followed by a '@' character.
If the file or directory has extended security information, the permissions field printed by the -l option is followed by a '+' character.

03-20-2008, 04:47 PM

From the man pages using ls with the -F option:

-F Display a slash / immediately after each pathname that is a directory, an asterisk * after each that is executable, an at sign @ after each symbolic link, an equals sign = after each socket, a percent sign % after each whiteout, and a vertical bar | after each that is a FIFO.

03-20-2008, 04:59 PM

Uh. Could someone point me to what those r,w,x,d things mean as well?

03-20-2008, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by goobimama

Uh. Could someone point me to what those r,w,x,d things mean as well?

Read / Write / eXecute / Directory.

The first tells me what kind of object it is, then the next three characters of the file permissions relate to the owners permission, the next three to the group permission, and the last three to anyone else (or sometimes referred to as 'others'). The owner and group are shown as part of the file listing.

So, for example if I list files in a directory and see this;

drwxr-xr-x 121 root admin 272 Dec 14 23:00 myfiles

It tells me it's a directory, the owner has read, write and execute permissions, the group has read and execute, and anyone else has read an execute permission. It also tells me the owner is root, and the group is admin. At the end it tells me the name of the file (or in this case, the directory).

You can see this in plain English by right clicking a file in finder, and clicking 'get info'. In the ownership and permissions part, you'll see the same in rather plainer terms.

You'll also sometimes see these permissions set out as a simple 3 digit number - read/write execute for everybody would be '777'. To allow just the ower full control, and the group and others to read/write only would be 755 etc.

03-20-2008, 06:16 PM

Many thanks! All is clear now

03-20-2008, 07:23 PM

To add a little bit more

r - 4
w - 2
x - 1

for a total of 7

777 =-rwxrwxrwx
755 = -rwxr-xr-x