Default permissions of /home/user..

[Andrew McNaughton]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Jesper Wallin wrote:

> Hello..
>
> I've asked this question before without getting any further help really..
> When a new user is added using "adduser" on 5.x (havn't really checked
> if it's the same under 4.x or not), the default homedir permission is 755
> (drwxr-xr-x) which to me, looks a bit insecure? It's of course pretty easy
> to solve it by a simple chmod, but yet, isn't there anyway to change the
> default chmod value? Last time I asked about this, people told me to check
> out the skel directory, but the only thing you can do in there is to change the
> default chmod value of the files/directories _in_ the homedir, not the chmod
> values of the actually homedir.. I would be glad if someone could give me
> further assistanse how do solve this without manually modifying the "adduser"
> script.. and if it this option doesn't exist, shouldn't it be added or is it just
> me who want my homedir secure from other users? ;)

By default, anyone can read a user's home directory, but because normally 
noone is in the user's default group except the user themselves, noone 
else can write to it.

If a user wants to restrict access to their entire home directory, they 
can chmod their own home directory, but this is not really recommended. 
It's better that they should make a restricted sub-directory for any 
restricted content.  That way they can create directories inside their 
home directory with permissions such that they allow collaboration with 
whichever group is appropriate.

Andrew McNaughton




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