Unmask

Hi All,
I'm a newbie to UNIX I'm learning AIX 5l Basics I'm unable to execute UNMASK command as mentioned. Could any one help me.

I don't know unmask. Maybe you mean "umask".

Yes I mean the same I've miss typed sorry.

Could you please explain what are you trying to do ? If you can post command syntax it would help us to understand and help you.

  • nilesh

The mention command does a very simple thing. Actually with it you set the default permissions you want for files. It could be for every created file in the system or for a specific user session.

If you for example want for every single file only read permissions then you have to do this:

777(all permissions) - 444(read permissions) = 333, the umask for only readable permissions is: 333

Have a look here: Setting default permissions

umask (as its name says) is a mask and you have to remember that what you set is to be subtracted from 777 to get the require file creation permissions.

umask 000 - will mean created files have perms 777
umask 022 - will mean create files will have pwems 755

Actually the default mode depends on the program which creates the file; often it's 666 minus umask or 644 minus umask. Very rarely does a program attempt to create a file with the executable bit set.