Allow specific user permission to read/write my folder

Question

I have a folder /home/samantha/folder that I want to share with the user tom. He can read/write the folder. How do I do that?

chown wouldn't do it because I still want to be able to be the owner of the folder. I don't see how to do this with chmod either.

grawity · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-22 15:05:01Z

If you are using Linux with a relatively modern filesystem (ext3/ext4, btrfs, ntfs), this can be done with POSIX ACLs:

Enable ACLs for the filesystem. This is only necessary for ext3 and ext4 on kernels older than 2.6.38. All other filesystems that support ACLs enable them automatically.
```
mount -o remount,acl /
tune2fs -o acl /dev/<partition>
```

Give tom access to the folder:

setfacl -m user:tom:rwx /home/samantha/folder

If the OS or the filesystem does not support ACLs, another way is to use groups.

chgrp the directory to that group, and give permissions with chmod:

 chgrp tom /home/samantha/folder
 chmod g+rwx /home/samantha/folder

FWIW, the OP added an additional answer instead of commenting. He/she has a question about your solution. Thanks. — user89272, Dec 7 '12 at 3:32
And tom will also need execute permission on /home/samantha to be able to reach /home/samantha/folder. — Lord Loh., Jul 16 '15 at 17:20

user89272 · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-07 03:30:11Z

Add both users to a common group. Make that group own the directory, and assign group permissions as needed.

2 Answers 2