On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Todd Cary <todd at aristesoftware.com> wrote: > I know this is a Linux 101 question, however I am unable to > locate the answer in my O'Reilly Linux book: how to set the > default for permissions when creating a new user. The default > for the GUI in my newly installed Centos 5.5 is 700. I usually > use 774. It's a user shell default setting, overridable with the "umask" setting. > And when root creates a new directory, is there a way to have a > default there too? Yes, reset the "umask" in root's /root/.profile for default login behavior. Getting it into non-login behavior may take a bit more work, and you may have to review and think about what your sudo settings do if you use sudo. > Lastly, if root or someone with root privileges creates a > sub-directory, is there a setting so that the sub-directory will > have the owner/group and permissions as the parent directory? Please look into the "sgid" settings with the "chmod" command. And be aware that, if a user can write a file, they can reset its permissions unless you get *very* arcane with things like NFSv4 ACL's.