Recently I’ve been seeing this question quite a lot so I decided to shade some light about what a umask
is, how to set it permanently for a user and explain what’s the differences between the following umask
values: 000, 002, 022, 027, 077 and 277.
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On Linux and Unix operating systems, new files are created with a default set of permissions. According to the official man page the description of
umask
is:This might be a bit confusing, so essentially what this means is that when a new file or directory is created it is restricted in a specific way by applying permissions “mask” called the
umask
. Theumask
command basically sets the default permission or base permissions to the newly created files or folders on a Linux machine. Most of the Linux distros give 022 (0022) as default UMASK.So for example, if your
umask
is set to 0022, when you create a new file it would be created with 0644 permissions, if you create a directory it would be created with 755 permissions. So essentially you subtract theumask
from the default666
file and777
folder permissions.The
umask
command is used to set this mask, or to show you its current value.To make things a bit clearer, here’s a table with a few examples:
Here’s that in action:
To permanently change your
umask
you need to update your shell profile:Hope that this helps! Regards, Bobby
You can use /etc/login.defs
Change UMASK acording the table below.