Why is the permission string 'lrwxrwxrwx' not meaningful for a symbolic link?

• A. Because it is a symbolic link; the rwx attributes are dummy values
• B. Because the owner has no permissions
• C. Because the link does not support permissions
• D. Because it is a directory

Answer: (A)

Symbolic links are pointers, not objects with their own meaningful access rights. Access is determined by the target file and the directories involved, not by the link itself. The leading “l” shows it’s a link, and the rest of the rwx bits are just placeholders that don’t gate access. So lrwxrwxrwx isn’t meaningful for a link because those permissions don’t apply to what you can actually access through the link; you follow the link to its target and check the target’s permissions instead. If you need the link’s own metadata, you can inspect it with tools like lstat, but those bits don’t affect access control.