How to create a Shared Folder between two Local User in Linux?¶

This article shows how to set-up a shared folder between two local users in Linux. The shared directory/folder will be accessible to both the users, they will be able to read/write each other’s file.

Let us create shared directory /home/shareFolder for user Bob and Alice and add them to a common group named projectA.

Note: You can create the uses Bob and Alice using following commands:

$ sudo useradd Bob
$ sudo passwd Bob
$ sudo useradd Alice
$ sudo passwd Alice

1. So, start by creating common group using groupadd command.

   $ sudo groupadd projectA
   

2. Now, create shared directory and change group for it using chgrp command.

   $ sudo mkdir /home/sharedFolder/
   $ sudo chgrp projectA /home/sharedFolder
   

3. After this we need to change appropriate permissions for the shared directory using chmod command.

   $ sudo chmod 770 /home/sharedFolder/
   

   Here 770 permission means:

   7 – owner has rwx permissions.
   7 – directory groups have rwx permissions.
   0 – others have no permissions.
   

4. We also need to set the SGID(Set-Group-ID) bit for the sharedFolder directory, now all newly created subdirectories/files under sharedFolder will inherit sharedFolder permissions.

   $ sudo chmod +s /home/sharedFolder
   

5. Finally we add users to the common group with whom to share the folder

   $ sudo usermod -a -G projectA Bob
   $ sudo usermod -a -G projectA Alice
   

Now /home/sharedFolder is accessible to both the user Bob and Alice. But others can’t access this directory. This directory will be accessible to only members of projectA group.

Code Permission¶

Each permission is assigned a value, as the following table shows, and the total of each set of permissions provides a number for that set.

Here’s an example using the testfile. Running ls -1 on the testfile shows that the file’s permissions are as follows −