Protection Scheme in UNIX

Running head: Protection Scheme in UNIX®
Richard Cooper
POS/355 - INTRODUCTION TO OPERATING SYSTEMS
5/21/15
Instructor: ANTHONY ISOM
Protection Scheme in UNIX®
As there is a requirement to support 5,000 users within an organization, there are certain ways in which access to a particular file can allow access to 4,990 users in total. Within UNIX, file access is maintained through the file system and structure that is maintained below the single root folder, ‘/ '.
By viewing the contents of a file using the ls command it will show the following output: drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Sep 9 2014 test
The first of these flags denotes the type of file, either: d = directory, - = ordinary file or l = symbolic link.
The next three positions (2-4) will determine the owner permissions with r = read, w = write, and x = execute.
Positions 5 to 7 will then denote these for other users within the same group while Positions 8 to 10 will denote the relevant permissions for all other users.
Standard file permissions can also be supported using Access Control Lists (ACLs) which will provide a centralized point that defines the specific users that can either read, execute or write to a file. The use of the getacl and setacl commands can allow to set permissions accordingly in terms of multiple users for example.

An alternative method would include the use of Access Control Lists whereby all 4,990 users that need access to the file is now allowed within a specified ACL. References
Matloff, N. (1998, October 19). File Systems in Unix. Retrieved from EDU: http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/UnixAndC/Unix/FileSyst.pdf
Pate, S. (2003). UNIX Filesystems: Evolution, Design, and Implementation. Wiley.

References
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