FreeBsd: let users of the same group have automatic read/write access to files and folders created by them

Question

Hello!

I'm in a FreeBSD-environment where we have one server that acts as a file-server. Now we have a problem that our SYS-admin says can not be fixed.

All or files resides in a folder and we all have access to that folder and its subfolders and files. The problem is that once I,or another user in our group, creates a file or folder we have to chmod that folder or file to change the rights so that others in our group can access and read/write and delete those files.

My thought is this: it just can not be true! How can this be impossible? Our SYS-admin knows about umask but still says it is impossible. I do not have enough knowledge about these things but to me it really sounds weird that it is impossible. Mind you: these are not files in our home-directories but in a folder where we are supposed to work with them on a daily basis.

Please help me gather information so I can guide him onto the right path, please...

Answer 1

I think what you want is a setgid bit on the directories and umask. Then newly created there files and directories will have proper group and proper permissions to let others read abd write them.

find /your-files-are-rooted-here -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod ug+rw,g+s

and set umask to 002 (or whatever is appropriate). And, of course, you may want to fix permissions for existing files (the command above only takes care of directories).