The "drwxr-xr-x" lines tell you the file access modes of your Directory or file. The meaning of the specific line, "drwxr-xr-x" is as follows: 1. d--------- means that it is a directory 2. -rwx------ means that it is read,write, and executable by you(owner). 3. ----r-x--- means that it is read and executable by your group. 4. -------r-x means that it is read and executable by everyone(others). If you type: % man chmod It will give you these numbers as a means of explaining chmod: 400 read by owner 200 write by owner 100 execute (search in directory) by owner 070 read, write, execute (search) by group 007 read, write, execute (search) by others This result may appear rather cryptic. To use our previous example with these numbers, it would appear as follows: 1. d--------- Has no chmod number associated with it, being either a directory or a file is determined during its creation. 2. -rwx------ =700, because it is read(400)+write(200)+execute(100)by owner. 3. ----r-x--- =050, because it is read(040)+execute(010) by group. 4. -------r-x =005, because it is read(004)+execute(001) by others. Therefore, if you had a directory that looked like this: drwx------ 2 kundert 512 Jun 15 11:18 cyber/ and you also wanted to make it readable and executable by your group and everyone else, you would type the command: % chmod 755 cyber and it would change from drwx------ 2 kundert 512 Jun 15 11:18 cyber/ to: drwxr-xr-x 2 kundert 512 Jun 15 11:18 cyber/ If you had typed the command: % chmod 744 cyber it would have changed to: drwxr--r-- 2 kundert 512 Jun 15 11:18 cyber/ This is all there is to it. There is also another method using letters, but it is more complicated and will not be covered here.