File permissions

All Unix systems such as the Toolserver have a very basic way of controlling file permissions. Those permissions indicate who is able to read, write, and execute files.

A file has an owner and a group. This can be checked by issuing stat filename. A permission applies to one of the three user classes, owner, group and others.

File permissions can be modified using chmod. Issue man 1 chmod for help.

Do not make files world readable unless you have reason to do so. This especially applies to password files and login data (the login-data/ folder in Pywikipedia). Making your .ssh/authorized_keys file world readable or your home directory world writable will cause SSH to refuse your login and means that your are left to the mercy of the Toolserver roots to restore your account.