prevent access to specific directory in my home directory for other user?

Question

I have one directory that I would like to prevent access for specific user. For example /home/myuser/secret should not be readable, accessible etc to specific user. He can see that directoty exists, but can't access / read its contents or modify any way.

How can I do that?

Other user should "navigate" into that home dir and only "a specific" (or a subset) user could not? — DonCallisto, Sep 17 '14 at 14:09
Other users if not specified, can see that directory on default. But if I specify to specific user that he can't see what's inside that dir, he should not see it — Andrius, Sep 17 '14 at 14:10
Andrius: no, other users can't by default into a unix system. However, I'll answer you under here — DonCallisto, Sep 17 '14 at 14:38

Mark Plotnick · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-17T15:27:21.107

1

If the filesystem supports ACLs, you can do this:

setfacl -m "u:dude:---" /home/myuser/secret

Which says the user dude should have no access (neither r nor w nor x) to that directory.

To verify, run the getfacl command:

$ getfacl /home/myuser/secret
# file: home/myuser/secret
# owner: myuser
# group: myuser
user::rwx
user:dude:---
group::rwx
mask::rwx
other::r-x

edited Sep 17 '14 at 15:27

answered Sep 17 '14 at 15:16

Mark Plotnick

9,598
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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 17 '14 at 14:37

0

Hello Linux Permissions are set as "Whitelist". You try to specify a blacklist.

I'w create a group with all user who should have access.

answered Sep 17 '14 at 14:37

Fabio Hyneck

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 17 '14 at 14:47

If you want to let other user navigate an arbitrary /home/ dir of another user, but you want to deny others to do that, you can procede as follows

let group to read and execute on that folder chmod 750 /home/myuser/secret
create a group that will be assigned to that folder groupadd secret_users
chown -R :secret_users /home/myuser/secret
add users to the group by editing /etc/group file. user inserted here could read files inside that folder but other users can't

prevent access to specific directory in my home directory for other user?

3 Answers3