35

I found some Linux files, and when I type ls -lah, it outputs this permissions format:

... 
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root    root  
...
-rw-rw-r--.  1 root    root 
...

I would like to know, what is the meaning of the dot (-rw-rw-r--.) at the end of the permissions format?

Benjamin W.
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miller
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  • ACL - see http://superuser.com/questions/230559/what-does-the-dot-mean-at-the-end-of-rw-r-r-how-do-you-set-it-with-chmod – doctorlove Jun 02 '15 at 11:36

4 Answers4

31

From info coreutils 'ls invocation' | grep -1 '[.+]. character' under Linux

GNU `ls' uses a `.' character to indicate a file with an SELinux
     security context, but no other alternate access method.

A file with any other combination of alternate access methods is
     marked with a `+' character.
SebMa
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phoxis
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14

From GNU.org under what information is listed:

GNU ls uses a ‘.’ character to indicate a file with a SELinux security context, but no other alternate access method.

This basically implies that the file has an Access Control List (ACL) with SELinux. You can set or delete ACL association for a file by using the setfacl command

muru
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Sid Shukla
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13

So NOT ACL, from @Tom van der Lee reference

+ (plus) suffix indicates an access control list that can control additional permissions.
. (dot) suffix indicates an SELinux context is present. Details may be listed with the command ls -Z.
@ suffix indicates extended file attributes are present.

An example on my machine:

$ ls -l 35mm DNS-cache 
-rw-r--r--. 1 graeme graeme     60 Feb 27  2010 35mm
-rw-r--r--  1 graeme everyone 5193 Jun  1 14:45 DNS-cache
$ 
$ getfacl -s 35mm DNS-cache 
$ ls -Z  35mm DNS-cache 
unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 35mm
                                   ? DNS-cache

So the getfacl -s produced no output, because there was no ACL. There was however a security context (seen with ls -Z)

GraemeV
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7

According to the Filesystem permissions wiki page, the dot indicates a SELinux context is present.

Tom van der Lee
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