hmm...what the?

[Edgar Allen]

Michael Campbell writes:
>
>what do you mean moade 0644?  chmod?  i use kppp to dial.

The mode of a file is the octal number corresponding to its
permission bits.

When a number is seen by your shell, (command line), if the number
starts with zero it is presumed to be octal instead of decimal.

if you do 'ls -l /etc/resolv.conf' you should see something like...

-rw-r--r--   1 root     other         59 Nov 26  1997 /etc/resolv.conf

Octal digits represent three bits so mode 0644 breaks down like this...

	The bit weights are...
 421421421
-rw-r--r--   
 42 4  4
----------  those bit weights become...
  6  4  4

The dashes represent bits with a value of zero.  That first zero before
the first 'r' can be descibed some other time.  The 'r' and 'w' are used as
nmemonics for Read and Write.

The three digits are for User, Group, and Other priveledges.  In this case
the User (root, see the 'ls above) can both read and write the file.  The Group
has no more priveledges than the rest of the world (Other), read only.