Shared Directories

This is handy to easily share files, pictures, shared documents, etc. on multi-user systems (family PCs etc.).

Because Debian uses a user private group (UPG) scheme by default, the default permissions for new files (umask) can be set to allow write access to the group.

To create groups use "addgroup <GROUPNAME>" as root. For example on your home PC you could create a group "family" and add the appropriate users to it.

Then create a family group directory: Do "mkdir /home/family", give it to the group with "chown :family /home/family" and change its permissions for example with  chmod u+rwx,g+rws,o-rwx /home/family  to a privately shared set-group-id directory (in octal notation: 2770).

Finally, change the default umask to 002. Unless libpam-umask is installed (see below), this has to be set in /etc/profile and /etc/login.defs . Now family group members can work with each other's files in the group directory without permission hassle.