On Unix-like operating systems, the getfacl command gets file access control lists.

This page covers the Linux version of getfacl.

Description

For each file, getfacl displays the file name, owner, the group, and the ACL (Access Control List). If a directory has a default ACL, getfacl also displays the default ACL. Non-directories cannot have default ACLs.

  • Description
  • Permissions
  • Syntax
  • Environment variables
  • Examples
  • Related commands
  • Linux commands help

If getfacl is used on a file system that does not support ACLs, getfacl displays the access permissions defined by the traditional file mode permission bits.

The output format of getfacl is as follows:

1: # file: somedir/ 2: # owner: lisa 3: # group: staff 4: user::rwx 5: user:joe:rwx #effective:r-x 6: group::rwx #effective:r-x 7: group:cool:r-x 8: mask:r-x 9: other:r-x 10: default:user::rwx 11: default:user:joe:rwx #effective:r-x 12: default:group::r-x 13: default:mask:r-x 14: default:other:—

Lines 4, 6 and 9 correspond to the user, group and other fields of the file mode permission bits. These three are called the base ACL entries. Lines 5 and 7 are named user and named group entries. Line 8 is the effective rights mask. This entry limits the effective rights granted to all groups and to named users. (The file owner and others permissions are not affected by the effective rights mask; all other entries are.) Lines 10 through 14 display the default ACL associated with this directory. Directories may have a default ACL. Regular files never have a default ACL.

The default behavior for getfacl is to display both the ACL and the default ACL, and to include an effective rights comment for lines where the rights of the entry differ from the effective rights.

If output is to a terminal, the effective rights comment is aligned to column 40. Otherwise, a single tab character separates the ACL entry and the effective rights comment.

The ACL listings of multiple files are separated by blank lines. The output of getfacl can also be used as input to setfacl.

Permissions

Processes with search access to a file (i.e., processes with read access to the containing directory of a file) are also granted read access to the file’s ACLs. This is analogous to the permissions required for accessing the file mode.

Syntax

getfacl [-dRLPvh] file …

getfacl [-dRLPvh] -

Options

Environment variables

If the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is defined, the default behavior of getfacl changes in the following ways: Unless otherwise specified, only the ACL is printed. The default ACL is only printed if the -d option is given. If no command line parameter is given, getfacl behaves as if it was invoked as “getfacl -”.

Examples

getfacl myfile.txt

Displays the access control list for the file myfile.txt. Output resembles the following:

file: myfile.txt

owner: computerhope

group: users

user::rw- group::r– other::r–

chmod — Change the permissions of files or directories.ls — List the contents of a directory or directories.setfacl — Modify the access control list of a file or files.