18.3 Definitions

user class

The conventional POSIX permission concept uses three classes of users for assigning permissions in the file system: the owner, the owning group, and other users. Three permission bits can be set for each user class, giving permission to read (r), write (w), and execute (x).

access ACL

The user and group access permissions for all kinds of file system objects (files and directories) are determined by means of access ACLs.

default ACL

Default ACLs can only be applied to directories. They determine the permissions a file system object inherits from its parent directory when it is created.

ACL entry

Each ACL consists of a set of ACL entries. An ACL entry contains a type, a qualifier for the user or group to which the entry refers, and a set of permissions. For some entry types, the qualifier for the group or users is undefined.