FilePermissions

• Documentation
• Project

FilePermissions is a Ruby library providing an object representation of the file permission bits in POSIX systems.

It can handle the generic read, write and execute permissions, as well as the setuid, setgid and sticky flags. Permission sets can be read from file system objects, parsed from typical string representations or simply defined by their numeric representation. They can then be manipulated through binary logic operators and written back to file system objects.

This project tries to conform to:

• Semantic Versioning (2.0.0)
• Ruby Packaging Standard (0.5-draft)
• Ruby Style Guide
• Gem Packaging: Best Practices

Additional facts:

• Written purely in Ruby.
• Documented with YARD.
• Automatically testable through RSpec.
• Intended to be used with Ruby 1.9.3 or higher.
• Cryptographically signed git tags.
• This library was developed as part of the UsersAndGroups project.

• Ruby 1.9.3 or higher
• bit_set

On *nix systems you may need to prefix the command with sudo to get root privileges.

gem install file_permissions

Go into the root directory of the installed gem and run the following command to fetch all development dependencies:

bundle

Afterwards start the test runner:

rake spec

If something goes wrong you should be notified through failing examples.

This documentation defines the public interface of the software. The version number of the software tracks changes to this public interface as described in Semantic Versioning. Do not use elements that are marked as private. These elements are not guaranteed to exist in otherwise compatible future versions. Should you really need some parts that are currently marked as private, please contact us. We might be able to expose them as public interface for your convenience.

This is still experimental software, even the public interface may change substantially in future releases.

In most cases you want to load the code by using the following command:

require 'file_permissions'

In a bundler Gemfile you should use the following:

gem 'file_permissions'

This project is contained within a namespace to avoid name collisions with other code. If you do not want to specifiy the namespace explicitly you can include it into the current scope by executing the following statement:

include GodObject::FilePermissions

The following documentation assumes that you did include the namespace.

The complete regular permissions of a POSIX file system object are represented by the ComplexMode. It aggregates three Mode objects which define the read, write and execute permissions for the owner, the owning group and others respectively. Additionally it holds an instance of the SpecialMode to define the state of the setuid, setgid and sticky flags of the file system object.

A ComplexMode can be created from a typical octal mode representation:

ComplexMode.new(0644)
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::ComplexMode: "rw-r--r--">

ComplexMode.new(03644)
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::ComplexMode: "rw-r-Sr-T">

Or simply by a list of permission digits:

ComplexMode.new(:user_write, :group_execute, :other_read, :sticky)
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::ComplexMode: "-w---xr-T">

It can also be read from the file system like this:

mode = ComplexMode.from_file('/path/to/a/file')

# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::ComplexMode: "rwsr-x---">

Note that it also accepts a Pathname object instead of a path String.

The ComplexMode object can now be used to access the permissions:

mode.user.execute?
# => true

mode.group.read?
# => true

mode.other.write?
# => false

mode.setuid?
# => true

Also you can modify the ComplexMode by replacing its aggregated Mode objects:

mode.other = Mode.new(:read, :execute)

mode
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::ComplexMode: "rwsr-xr-x">

mode.special = SpecialMode.new(:setuid, :setgid)

mode
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::ComplexMode: "rwsr-sr-x">

The ComplexMode can be again written to a file system object by issuing the following:

mode.assign_to_file('/path/to/some/other/file')

Note that it also accepts a Pathname object instead of a path String.

Both Mode and SpecialMode are intended to be parts of the ComplexMode. Instances are immutable and can therefore only be defined during creation.

New instances can either be created by a list of permission digits:

Mode.new(:read, :write, :execute)
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::Mode: "rwx">

SpecialMode.new(:setuid, :setgid, :sticky)
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::SpecialMode: "sst">

Or be defined by their octal digit representation:

Mode.new(5)
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::Mode: "r-x">

SpecialMode.new(3)
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::SpecialMode: "-st">

Another way to create new instances is to parse a String representation:

regular_mode = Mode.parse('xr')
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::Mode: "r-x">

special_mode = SpecialMode.new('-st')
# => #<GodObject::FilePermissions::SpecialMode: "-st">

Note that instead of the Mode, when parsing a SpecialMode, the String representation has to be in the correct order and including dashes for disabled digits because the SpecialMode representation doesn't have unique character representations for each permission digit.

Both Mode and SpecialMode can then be asked for the state of their digits:

regular_mode.read?
# => true
regular_mode.write?
# => false
regular_mode.execute?
# => true

regular_mode.state
# => {:read => true, :write => false, :execute => true}

regular_mode.enabled_digits
# => #<Set: {:read, :execute}>

regular_mode.disabled_digits
# => #<Set: {:write}>

special_mode.setuid?
# => false
special_mode.setgid?
# => true
special_mode.sticky?
# => true

special_mode.state
# => {:setuid => false, :setgid => true, :sticky => true}

special_mode.enabled_digits
# => #<Set: {:setgid, :sticky}>

special_mode.disabled_digits
# => #<Set: {:setuid}>

Please use the issue tracker on github.com to let us know about errors or ideas for improvement of this software.

This software is developed in the source code management system Git. There are several synchronized mirror repositories available:

• GitHub (located in California, USA)

  URI: https://github.com/godobject/file_permissions.git

• GitLab (located in Illinois, USA)

  URI: https://gitlab.com/godobject/file_permissions.git

• BitBucket (located in California, USA)

  URI: https://bitbucket.org/godobject/file_permissions.git

• Pikacode (located in France)

  URI: https://v2.pikacode.com/godobject/file_permissions.git

You can get the latest source code with the following command, while exchanging the placeholder for one of the mirror URIs:

git clone MIRROR_URI

The final commit before each released gem version will be marked by a tag named like the version with a prefixed lower-case "v". Every tag will be signed by Alexander E. Fischer's OpenPGP public key which enables you to verify your copy of the code cryptographically.

Add the key to your GnuPG keyring by the following command:

gpg --import aef-openpgp.asc

This command will tell you if your code is of integrity and authentic:

git tag --verify [TAG NAME]

To package your state of the source code into a gem package use the following command:

rake build

The gem will be generated according to the .gemspec file in the project root directory and will be placed into the pkg/ directory.

Help on making this software better is always very appreciated. If you want your changes to be included in the official release, please clone the project on github.com, create a named branch to commit, push your changes into it and send a pull request afterwards.

Please make sure to write tests for your changes so that no one else will break them when changing other things. Also notice that an inclusion of your changes cannot be guaranteed before reviewing them.

The following people were involved in development:

• Oliver Feldt of@godobject.net
• Alexander E. Fischer aef@godobject.net
• Axel Sorge as@godobject.net
• Andreas Wurm aw@godobject.net

Copyright GodObject Team dev@godobject.net, 2012-2016

This file is part of FilePermissions.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.