change permitions in user home

[Leonard Bussey]

On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 12:37 -0400, Doug Pollard wrote:
> I need to change permissions on some of my user files.   I have the 
> command but i need to know how to apply it to an individual file.  Do I 
> click on the file and then put in the command.   That dosn't seem to 
> work.  Been reading all morning can find ways to change all the files 
> but not to single out an individual file.  I have files that everybody 
> can write to ,read and exicute and I want to change just those files so 
> that I as the owner of them can write to them.
>             Thanks Doug
> 
To change the permission of a single file, like "myfile.doc", from a
terminal window, type

sudo chmod 755 myfile.doc

Here is what the numbers represent
7 is for the owners group, 5 is for group, and 5 is also for others

The numbers are a binary total as follows, where read, write, and
execute represent 3 binary bits and can be either on or off.

		 4     2      1
		Read Write Execute
Group		 X     X      X

So if you wanted to give the others just read & write permissions, you
would add 4 and 2 to give you a permission of 6.  

		 4     2       1
		Read Write  Execute
		 X     X       0


If you wanted to give the others just read permission, the permission
would just be 4

		 4     2       1
		Read Write  Execute
		 X     0       0

If you wanted to give just read and execute, you would add 4 for the
read bit and 1 for the execute bit to get a total of 5.

So in the above example I gave

sudo chmod 755 myfile.doc

7 would enable the owner to read, write, and execute
and the group and others to only read & execute

Hope this clarifies this for you.  Feel free to email me if you need
more information.