Files and directories are created with the incorrect permissions

Symptoms

You may find that files and directories are created with incorrect or unexpected permissions.

Description 

The permissions that files are created with can be influenced by a few factors. These are covered below.

Workaround

Non-standard umask

In the case that permissions are not specified, the umask value is subtracted from the default files and directory permission to obtain the final permissions that will be used. If the umask is non-standard, this may result in incorrect or unexpected permissions being used. The default umask is 0022 and it can be checked with the following command.

# umask
0022

Custom FACLs

File Access Control Lists for a directory may influence the permissions for files and directories created inside of it. The default FACL will show just the basic permissions of the directory as shown below.

# ll -d /root/
dr-xr-x---. 13 root root 4096 Jun 10 04:33 /root/
[root@cloud7-94 ~]# getfacl /root
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: root
# owner: root
# group: root
user::r-x
group::r-x
other::---

Configuration files

If the file is generated by a service or daemon, there may be a setting for the permissions to be used. This will vary depending on the specific service or daemon and you will need to consult the documentation for it.