If you’ve ever tried to run a script from the command line in Linux and gotten an error message saying that it’s not executable or attempted to enter a directory only to be blocked by the system, you probably don’t have permissions to do those things. Fortunately, if you have the proper rights or the ability to act as a super user (accessible by using sudo), you can change the permissions on files and directories.
In this how-to we’ll look at the chmod command, a powerful command that can change file and directory permissions for the owner, user group members and others. In a section below, we’ll also explain how to tell what group your user is in and exactly what Linux means by “others.”
