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Chmod 420

Owner can read. Group can write. Others have no permissions.

Numeric Notation

420

Symbolic Notation

r---w----

Command

chmod 420 file

Permission Breakdown

Detailed view of permissions for each user category

Owner

✓ Read✗ Write✗ Execute

Group

✗ Read✓ Write✗ Execute

Others

✗ Read✗ Write✗ Execute

For Files

chmod 420 filename.txt

Changes permissions of a single file

chmod 420 *.txt

Changes permissions of all .txt files

After applying chmod 420, files will display as:

r---w---- filename.txt

For Directories

chmod 420 dirname

Changes permissions of a directory

chmod -R 420 dirname

Recursively changes all files and subdirectories

After applying chmod 420, directories will display as:

dr---w---- dirname

Common Use Cases for Chmod 420

Restricted Access

Files with restricted access, not available to public users.

General Purpose

This permission set is useful when you need owner read access.

General Purpose

This permission set is useful when you need owner read access.

Related Chmod Codes

Explore similar permission configurations

Try the Interactive Calculator

Experiment with different permission combinations

Understanding Chmod 420

The chmod 420 command sets specific file permissions in Linux and Unix systems. This permission configuration owner can read. group can write. others have no permissions.

In the numeric notation 420, each digit represents the permission level for different user categories. The symbolic representation r---w---- provides a visual way to understand these permissions, where 'r' means read, 'w' means write, 'x' means execute, and '-' means no permission.

When you execute chmod 420 filename, you're modifying the file's access control list to match this specific permission pattern. This is essential for maintaining proper security and access control in multi-user environments.