ls -l explained

There is a command I use a lot and it is ls -l

The -l switch turns on long listing format

Here is an example of its output:

drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Mar  9 11:49 modprobe.d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root         0 Jan 11  2009 motd
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Feb 23 17:17 mplayer
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root       311 Mar 31 10:01 mtab
-rw------- 1 root    ggarron      0 Feb 24 18:07 mtab.fuselock
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root      2614 Jul 13  2009 mtools.conf
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Mar  9 11:48 mysql
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root      8728 Feb 13 14:30 nanorc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root       767 Jan  4 04:40 netconfig
drwxr-xr-x 3 root    root      4096 Feb 23 17:17 nginx
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root      2147 Jan 29  2009 nscd.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root       223 Jul 17  2009 nsswitch.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root      1451 Jun 19  2009 ntp.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root       415 Nov 13 19:47 ntpd.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root         0 Jun 18  2009 odbc.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root         0 Jun 18  2009 odbcinst.ini
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Feb 23 17:10 openldap
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root      2408 Nov 10 20:05 pacman.conf
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Feb 23 17:18 pacman.d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Mar  9 11:52 pam.d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Dec 29 10:40 pango
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root       737 Jun 26  2009 passwd
-rw------- 1 root    root       681 Jun 12  2009 passwd-
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Nov  2 16:38 pcmcia
drwxr-xr-x 3 root    root      4096 Mar  9 11:52 php
drwxr-xr-x 5 root    root      4096 Jan  7 12:44 pm
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root      4096 Aug 21  2009 polipo
drwxr-xr-x 5 root    root      4096 Jan 31 06:37 polkit-1
drwxr-xr-x 5 root    root      4096 Feb 23 17:18 ppp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root       209 Mar 30 17:41 printcap
drwxrwx--- 3 privoxy privoxy   4096 Feb 23 17:18 privoxy

Let’s take this one to analyse

-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root       209 Mar 30 17:41 printcap

We will split the output for better understanding.

The first field could be

• for File, d for Directory, l for Link

The second,third,fourth fields

Those are permissions that means read, write and execute, and comes in three different fields that belongs to the permission the:

• second: The owner has over the file
• third: The group has over the file
• fourth: Everybody else has over the file

The fifth field

This field specifies the number of links or directories inside this directory.

The sixth field is the user

The user that owns the file, or directory

The seventh field is te group

The group that file belongs to, and any user in that group will have the permissions given in the third field over that file.

The eighth field

The size in bytes, you may modify this by using the -h option together with -l this will have the output in k,M,G for a better understanding.

The ninth field

The date of last modification

The tenth field

The name of the file

And that is it, hope you now understand better the output of ls -l command.