Explaining Find Command's "-perm mode", "-perm -mode" & "-perm /mode" in Linux

[shivajikobardan]

TL;DR

When to use "-perm mode", "-perm -mode" and "-perm /mode" in find command Linux?

I am reading the find documentation and find this pretty confusing.

I'll try to explain what I've understood. You can add your explanation to this.

 .
    ├── file1.txt (Permission: 644)
    ├── file2.txt (Permission: 600)
    └── subdir
        ├── file3.txt (Permission: 755)
        └── file4.txt (Permission: 700)

Say we have a scenario like this.

    $ find . -perm 644
    ./file1.txt

Here the -perm 644 will exactly match for files that have permission 644.

    $ find . -perm -600
    ./file1.txt
    ./file2.txt

Here the -perm -600 will find any find that have at least 600 as permission.

    $ find . -perm /700
    ./file2.txt
    ./subdir/file3.txt
    ./subdir/file4.txt

Here -perm /700 finds files that have any of 7,0,0 as their permission bit set.

Is my understanding correct and what are the potential use cases of these respective commands?

 

[jedishrfu]

You could be looking for supposedly private files that are publicly readable or executable.

One use case might be others are doing maintenance on your machines and you want scripts that can check for vulnerabilities such as allowing some file to be executed or changed that shouldn't be.