Unix Permissions Problems

In our environment, your home directory can be viewed and modified by both UNIX and Windows. The files have permissions that can be set from both operating systems and sometimes UNIX permissions may get scrambled when set from within Windows.

For example, after adjusting permissions in Windows, running the ls -l (permission check) command on your files in UNIX may yield

-rwxrwxrwx-.

But when problems occur the files may not actually be world readable and trying to change the permissions from UNIX will not work.

The simplest way to fix such problems is to edit Windows file security settings. If all of your folders and files are affected, try looking at the security settings for your entire home directory. If just a few files or folders are having problems go to them and repeat the procedure for every one.

To look and change settings for the files follow these steps:

• Right click on the directory you wish to change permissions for and select Properties.
• In the Properties window, click on the Security tab.
• Click on your name in the selection box. Make sure that all the boxes under “allow” are checked. In most cases the Everyone group should not have any boxes checked. Make sure not to check any deny boxes in the everyone group; instead, deselect allow boxes.