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setacl(1) General Commands Manual setacl(1) NAME setacl - Changes the access control list on a file or directory (ACL) SYNOPSIS setacl [-a] [-b] [-k] [-K] [-b] [-d -D] [-x entries] [-X file1] [-u entries] [-U file2] filename ... FLAGS Specifies access ACL. Reset the ACL to just the base entries (u::, g::, o::). The operation applies to the default access ACL. The -d flag is not defined by POSIX. The operation applies to the default di- rectory ACL. The -D flag is not defined by POSIX. Delete the default access ACL for the designated directory. Delete the default directory ACL for the designated directory. The -K flag is not defined by POSIX. Removes the ACL entries designated in file1 from the designated object. Removes the designated entries in the ACL from the designated object. Updates the ACL with the specified entries that match existing entries in tag type and tag qualifier. ACL entries are added if they are not already present in the ACL. See the Contents of an ACL Entry section for the format of ACL entries. Updates the ACL with the entries speci- fied in file2 that match existing entries in tag type and tag quali- fier. ACL entries are added if they are not already present in the ACL. See the Contents of an ACL Entry section for the format of ACL entries. The -a, -d, and -D flags are not mutually exclusive; they can all be specified, and all are set. If none are specified the -a flag is as- sumed. The -d and -D flags only apply to directories. The -b flag is applied before any of the -u, -U, -x, or -X flags Multiple -u, -U, -x, and -X flags are all applied to the acl in the or- der listed on the command line. All of flags are applied to a tempo- rary copy of the ACL before the ACL is applied to the files. It is not an error for an intermediate version of the ACL to be ill formed, as long as the ACL is well formed by the time it is applied. Several flags accept arguments of the following types: The ACL entries used to perform the requested operation. Multiple ACL entries are sep- arated by commas. There is no required ordering of entries. A file containing ACL entries to use to perform the requested operation. Each entry should be on a separate line. There is no required ordering of entries. If a line contains the comment character, setacl ignores the line. DESCRIPTION This command is based on Draft 13 of the POSIX P1003.6 standard. The command may change as the P1003.6 standard is finalized. The setacl command sets the access control list (ACL) to the designated list of objects, which can be one or more files or directories. Contents of an ACL Entry The external representation of an ACL entry consists of three colon (:) separated fields. The first field is a tag type, the second field con- tains optional qualifiers whose meaning depend on the tag type, and the third field is a list of the permissions. The following examples are typical: user::rwx user:jdoe:rw- user:mightymouse:r-- user:bsmith:rwx group::r-- other::--- The tag types and associated qualifiers are: If the qualifier field is empty, the entry defines the permissions of the user who owns the file or directory. User names or UIDs can be speci- fied as qualifiers; in this case, the entry defines the permissions of these users. If the qualifier field is empty, the entry defines the permissions of users who are members of the group associated with the file or directory. Group names or GIDs can be specified as qualifiers; in this case the entry defines the permissions of members of these groups. No qualifiers are allowed for the other tag type. This entry specifies the permissions for users who are not covered by any other entries. The third field specifies the discretionary access permissions. They are: Letter Octal PERMISSION r 4 Read access w 2 Write access x 1 Execute/Search access - 0 No access A set of permissions in an ACL entry is internally represented in three bits and displayed as a character string, as in untrusted DIGITAL UNIX. The set of permissions can be specified in three ways: As an octal digit. Add the numbers shown above to determine the permissions. The value 0 (zero), for example, specifies no permissions, and the value 7 specifies all permissions. As an absolute character string. An ab- solute character string contains three characters. The first specifies read permission, the second write permission, and the third specifies execute/search permission. To grant all permissions, specify rwx in that order. To deny one or more permissions, use the character - in the appropriate positions. For example, the entry r-x grants read and exe- cute/search permissions and denies write permission. As a relative character string. A relative character string adds or removes permis- sions from the existing set. To add permissions, specify a "+" followed by one or more permission letters. For example, +r adds read permission to the existing set. To remove permissions, specify a "^" followed by one or more permission letters. For example, ^x removes execute/search permission. Both octal digits and absolute character strings set the permissions to the specified values. One of these forms should be used for new en- tries. Relative permissions update an existing ACL entry (flags -u and -U) with an input entry that matches in tag type and tag qualifier. If se- tacl adds an entry to an ACL, a + prefix is ignored and the set of per- missions is entered as an absolute string; if the prefix is ^, the per- missions field is set to no access. If an entry is to be removed from an ACL, input permissions are ignored altogether. Suppose an ACL entry is specified with relative permissions, group:dec:^wx (remove wx permissions) to be applied to a matching en- try with permissions r-x. The matching entry will have a new set of permissions as follows: group:dec:r-- (read only) Contents of an ACL An ACL contains at least three entries: A user entry with no qualifiers A group entry with no qualifiers An other entry An ACL also has one or more user or group entries with qualifiers. user::rwx group::rw- user:user1:r-x group:dec:--x other::rwx The entry group::rw- is the file group owner and specifies the read and write permissions. DEFAULT ACLs The default directory ACL allows the owner or a privileged user to as- sociate an ACL with a directory that is to be inherited as an access ACL when a subdirectory is created. The default directory ACL will also be inherited as the default directory ACL by the new directory. The default access ACL allows the owner or a privileged user to asso- ciate an ACL with a directory that is to be inherited as an access ACL when an object is created within the directory. If the object being created is a directory and a default directory ACL exists on the parent directory, it is inherited as the access ACL and not the default access ACL. The default access ACL is inherited as the default access ACL for any subdirectory created AUTHORIZATIONS To change or remove the ACL of a file, the user must either own the file or be privileged. EXAMPLES Assume that the ACL on a file named shared contains the following mini- mum entries: user::rwx group::r-x other::--- The following command updates and adds entries: $ setacl -u group::r--,user:alpha:-w- shared The resulting ACL entries are: user::rwx user:alpha:-w- group::r-- other::--- The owning group entry on the command line matches the existing group entry, so the permission set is reduced to read only. The user entry on the command line does not match an existing entry and is added. As- sume that the ACL on a file named shared contains the following en- tries: user::rwx user:user1:-w- group::-w- group:dec:-wx other::--- Apply the setacl -u command (update) to the shared file as follows: $ setacl -u user:user1:-wx shared The resulting ACL entries are: user::rwx user:user1:-wx- group::-w- group:dec:-wx other::--- Assume that the directory foo contains no de- fault ACLs, and the following command is issued: $ setacl -d -u user:dec:r-- foo Any file or directory that is created within the directory foo now in- herits the following ACL as the access ACL: user::rw- user:dec:r-- group::r-- other::r-- Assume that the directory foo contains no default ACLs, and the following command is issued: $ setacl -D -u user:dec:r-- foo Any directory that is created within the directory foo now inherits the following ACL as the access ACL, as well as its default directory ACL: user::rw- user:dec:r-- group::r-- other::r-- Assume that the directory foo contains no default ACLs, and the following commands are issued: $ setacl -D -u user:dec:r-- foo $ setacl -d -u user:alpha:r-- foo Any directory that is created within the directory foo now inherits the following ACL as the access ACL as well as the default directory ACL: user::rw- user:dec:r-- group::r-- other::r-- The following ACL are inherited as the default access ACL. user::rw- user:alpha:r-- group::r-- other::r-- Any file created in directory foo inherits the ACL as the access ACL: user::rw- user:alpha:r-- group::r-- other::r-- EXIT VALUES If setacl is invoked incorrectly or cannot decipher the specified ACL, it returns an exit status of 1. setacl returns an exit status of 0 (zero) if all files are changed. ERRORS The setacl command displays an error message explaining why an ACL of a file could not be changed. RELATED INFORMATION Commands: getacl(1) Files: acl(4) Security delim off setacl(1)