Special thanks to Jim Binkley for originally creating this reference.

In order to prevent having other students use your work, please make sure that you protect your directories and files. You can use the UNIX "chmod" command to protect your files and make them readable by only yourself; e.g.,

  1. Protect all of your course files from prying eyes
    # chdir to $HOME (your login account home directory)
    % cd

    # create a directory to store your class work
    % mkdir classes

    # set permissions to 700, meaning read/write/execute access for you,
    # but not for group or world (mode bits are user/group/world)
    # see the man page for chmod for more details
    % chmod 700 classes

    # check the permissions on the directory
    % ls -ld .

    # you need to be careful of permissions as if you have web pages in your
    # public_html directory, they need to be world readable. Obviously, don't
    # put any sensitive information in this area


  2. For individual files or directories

    # directory that a1 is stored in
    % chmod 700 mya1
    # check it
    % ls -ld mya1

    # individual files
    % chmod 700 f1 f2 f3 ... etc.
    # ls -l f1 f2 f3 ... etc.

Please as a favor to all of us, make sure your files are protected. Don't let other people steal your work. If you are feeling more paranoid, check out pgp and des utilities if available on your system (exist on sirius).