Chapter 8. Access Control Lists
Files and directories have permission sets for the owner of
the file, the group associated with the file, and all other
users for the system. However, these permission sets have
limitations. For example, different permissions cannot be
configured for different users. Thus, Access
Control Lists (ACLs) were implemented.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel provides ACL support for the ext3 file system and NFS-exported file systems. ACLs are also recognized on ext3 file systems accessed via Samba.
Along with support in the kernel, the acl package is required to implement ACLs. It contains the utilities used to add, modify, remove, and retrieve ACL information.
The cp and mv commands copy or move any ACLs associated with files and directories.
8.1. Mounting File Systems
Before using ACLs for a file or directory, the partition for the file or directory must be mounted with ACL support. If it is a local ext3 file system, it can mounted with the following command:
mount -t ext3 -o acl <device-name> <partition>
For example:
mount -t ext3 -o acl /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol02 /work
Alternatively, if the partition is listed in the /etc/fstab file, the entry for the partition can include the acl option:
LABEL=/work /work ext3 acl 1 2
If an ext3 file system is accessed via Samba and ACLs have been enabled for it, the ACLs are recognized because Samba has been compiled with the --with-acl-support option. No special flags are required when accessing or mounting a Samba
share.
By default, if the file system being exported by an NFS server supports ACLs and the NFS client can read ACLs, ACLs are utilized by the client system.
To disable ACLs on NFS shares when configuring the server, include the no_acl option in the /etc/exports file. To disable ACLs on an NFS share when mounting it on a
client, mount it with the no_acl option via the command line or the /etc/fstab file.
