Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server - Second Edition

By : Jay LaCroix
Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server - Second Edition

By: Jay LaCroix

Overview of this book

Ubuntu Server has taken the data centers by storm. Whether you're deploying Ubuntu for a large-scale project or for a small office, it is a stable, customizable, and powerful Linux distribution that leads the way with innovative and cutting-edge features. For both simple and complex server deployments, Ubuntu's flexible nature can be easily adapted to meet to the needs of your organization. With this book as your guide, you will learn all about Ubuntu Server, from initial deployment to creating production-ready resources for your network. The book begins with the concept of user management, group management, and filesystem permissions. Continuing into managing storage volumes, you will learn how to format storage devices, utilize logical volume management, and monitor disk usage. Later, you will learn how to virtualize hosts and applications, which will cover setting up KVM/QEMU, as well as containerization with both Docker and LXD. As the book continues, you will learn how to automate configuration with Ansible, as well as take a look at writing scripts. Lastly, you will explore best practices and troubleshooting techniques when working with Ubuntu Server that are applicable to real-world scenarios. By the end of the book, you will be an expert Ubuntu Server administrator who is well-versed in its advanced concepts.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

Setting permissions on files and directories

In this section, all the user management we've done in this chapter so far all comes together. We've learned how to add accounts, manage accounts, and secure them but we haven't actually done any work regarding managing the resources as far as who is able to access them. In this section, I'll give you a brief overview of how permissions work in Ubuntu Server and then I'll provide some examples for customizing them.

I'm sure by now that you understand how to list the contents of a directory with the ls command. When it comes to viewing permissions, the -l flag is especially handy, as the output that the long listing provides allows us to view the permissions of an object:

ls -l 

The following are some example, hypothetical file listings:

-rw-rw-rw- 1 doctor doctor   5          Jan 11   12:52 welcome 
-rw...