Guide to Umask Values in Linux

Sometimes in Linux, you will need to go ahead and set a umask on a user, files, or anything else to change the default permissions files or folders will be created as. Below is a little matrix of what the umask commands will do.

Umask Command == User Group Owner (ls -lah output)== Decimal Value== Chmod

umask 0077 == rwx --- --- == 700 600 == u=rwX,go= 

umask 0007 == rwx rwx --- == 770 660 == ug=rwX,o= 

umask 0027 == rwx r-x --- == 750 640 == u=rwX,g=rX,o= 

umask 0022 == rwx r-x r-x == 755 644 == u=rwX,go=rX 

umask 0002 == rwx rwx r-x == 775 664 == ug=rwX,o=rX 

umask 0000 == rwx rwx rwx == 777 666 == a=rwXX

A common usage of this would be within suphp.conf in an Apache / Suphp environment. 

root@server [~]# grep umask /opt/suphp/etc/suphp.conf

umask=0022

Meaning folders by default would be created with 755 permissions, and files with 644 permissions.