Permissions & Security (Chmod/Chown/ACLs/SELinux/AppArmor)

Stop chasing shadow permissions with ls -l

🧩 The Challenge

You know that feeling when you run ls -l on a directory, everything looks perfect, yet your web server still gets a 403 Forbidden? It’s enough to make you throw your keyboard out the window when standard permissions don’t tell the whole story.

💡 The Fix

Start looking for POSIX ACLs, because that’s usually where the ghosts are hiding in your filesystem. If that plus sign shows up in your output, your permissions are being overruled by an access control list you forgot you added six months ago.

ls -ld /path/to/your/dir | grep "+" && getfacl -R /path/to/your/dir

⚙️ Why It Works

Adding a plus sign to your directory listing confirms the presence of an ACL, which overrides the traditional owner/group/other bits you see at a glance. Getfacl spits out the actual, granular access rules that are probably blocking your user.

🚀 Pro-Tip: Use setfacl -b to strip all those nasty extended attributes if you want to get back to sanity.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 11/3/2026