From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Nov 17 11:38:03 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA06636 for questions-outgoing; Mon, 17 Nov 1997 11:38:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from ix.netcom.com (sil-wa4-59.ix.netcom.com [207.93.136.123]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA06631 for ; Mon, 17 Nov 1997 11:37:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tomdean@ix.netcom.com) Received: (from tomdean@localhost) by ix.netcom.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA00729; Mon, 17 Nov 1997 11:37:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tomdean) Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 11:37:13 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199711171937.LAA00729@ix.netcom.com> From: Thomas Dean To: bill@duey.interlinks.net CC: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: (message from Bill Sandiford on Mon, 17 Nov 1997 13:41:49 +0000 (GMT)) Subject: Re: Hidden Files Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk A filename that starts with '.' is not normally displayed thru the ls command or shell expansions of file names. Look at 'man ls'. This does not control access to the file or prevent someone from seeing the file with the ls command or special shell expansions. Try this: ls ls -a echo * echo .* What do you really mean by 'hide files', deny access? If so, look at 'man chmod' or get a basic Unix user's guide or script user's guide. O'Reilly puts out a couple of good ones. You can deny access to directorys or files by permissions on files. Look at group membership and file permissions. 'man group'. One way to 'hide' files is to put them into a directory that only the owner has read access. That way, no one other than the owner can see the files. If the directory name starts with '.', then the default ls command and shell expansions will not see the directory. No one other than the owner or someone with root permissions can see the files in the directory. tomdean