In the permission string drwxrwxr-x, which permission is granted to others?

• A. Read, write, and execute
• B. No permissions
• C. Read and execute
• D. Write only

Answer: (C)

Unix permissions are shown as three groups of three characters after the file type, representing owner, group, and others. The last group corresponds to what everyone else (others) can do. In this string, the last triplet is r-x, which means read and execute are allowed, while write is not. So others have permission to read and run the file, but not to modify it. The other options don’t fit because they would require different combinations: rwx would mean full access including write, --- would mean no access, and -w- would mean write only without read or execute.