Project Space Collaboration

Making files group writeable in your project space

If you create files in a project space, the default is to create files that your whole project group can read, but only you can modify. We run an automatic nightly process to ensure that whatever permissions you have on files in your project space, they are also granted to your project group. Any project files you can modify will become group-modifiable, and any project files you can execute will become group-executable.

In order to grant group writeable permissions immediately (to other members of your shared_space project), please do the following:

  1. Open a terminal window from ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal
  2. Determine which project directory you wish to modify: ls ~/shared_space/
  3. Run the script: fixGroupPerm.sh
  4. You will be prompted for the project directory name. This is a directory located under ~/shared_space/, which you obtained in step 2.

Running this script will grant writeable permissions to all files under this location. Please give this script only one argument (i.e. one project space at a time).

You will need to run this command after each time you create files in your shared project space in order to grant your collaborators the same level of access you have. If you are running a script to create the files (e.g. R code, or a Stata .do file), it may be simplest to add a call to the fixGroupPerms.sh script at the end of your code.

Configure your default file sharing preferences

If most or all of your work in the RCE is done in collaborative project spaces, you may want to change the default file creation mode (i.e. the file access permissions) for your RCE account so that all files you create can be modified by members of the group which owns them. If you decide to pursue this option, two important caveats apply:

  1. This change only affects the default access mode assigned to newly-created files. The application creating the file can override the default to set a more restrictive access mode on the files.
  2. The access mode on the files/directories you create apply to whichever group owns the file/directory, which may or may not be your collaborative group.

Other notes regarding file permissions:

  • You can run the command ls -l on a file to view its ownership. Group ownership will be displayed in the fourth column.
  • If you are creating files under ~/shared_space, then they should automatically be created with ownership by your collaborative group.
  • If you create files in your home directory, however, they will be owned by the "users" group and the access permissions (e.g. allow read/write/access by the group) will apply to all RCE users.
  • Restricting access to your home directory itself can help limit the impact of such an exposure.

If you understand and accept these caveats, you can proceed to change your default file creation mode for your RCE account by doing the following:

  1. Navigate to ApplicationsRCE UtilitiesFile Sharing Config Helper
  2. Choose the option for 002.
  3. This can also be run from a terminal window with the command fileSharing.
  4. Terminate your current RCE session and start a new RCE session.