POSIX Access Control Lists (ACLs) provide a richer access control model than traditional UNIX Discretionary Access Control (DAC) that sets read, write, and execute permissions for the owner, group, and all other system users. You can configure ACLs that define access rights for more than just a single user or group, and specify rights for programs, processes, files, and directories. If you set a default ACL on a directory, its descendents inherit the same rights automatically. The kernel provides ACL support for ext3, ext4, and NFS-exported file systems.

The following are examples of setting and displaying ACLs for directories and files.

Grant read access to a file or directory by a user.

# setfacl -m u:user:r file

Display the name, owner, group, and ACL for a file or directory.

# getfacl file

Remove write access to a file for all groups and users by modifying the effective rights mask rather than the ACL.

# setfacl -m m::rx file

Remove the entry for a group from the ACL of a file.

# setfacl -x g:group file

Copy the ACL of file f1 to file f2.

# getfacl f1 | setfacl --set-file=- f2

Promote the ACL settings of a directory to default ACL settings that can be inherited.

# getfacl --access dir | setfacl -d -M- dir

For more information on how to manage ACLs, see the setfacl(1) and getfacl(1) manual pages.