View source for How To Secure Your Home Directory

<!--Originally written on: 2006-Jan-22 - updated 2020-01-06 -->

All ECE accounts have their home directories stored on Unix/Linux file servers.

The default permissions for home directories at ECE is 711, which means that other users can enter your home directory. Additionally, the default
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umask umask] is 022, which means that any
files/directories that you create will be readable by others.  Note that in order to be able to read a file created with the default umask, the other user will need to know its name, as they will not be able to get a directory listing.

Some users may consider this to be a security risk.  However, some unix processes,
specifically the email system's anti-spam tools and the department's web
server, need to be able to access files within your home directory in order to
read your resource files.  Since some users find it challenging to set the
correct permissions on their home directories to get the right combination of
security they desire and correct access for system processes, the recommended
method to secure your home directory is to create a subdirectory -- something
like ''~/work'' -- in which to keep your work.  Then, you can
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chmod set the permissions] on this
subdirectory to something more restrictive (i.e., 700).

ECE IT Services considers the securing of one's home directory to be the
responsibility of the user.  In addition to setting the permissions on your
''~/work'' directory (see examples below), you may wish to adjust your umask.

====Example 1: setting permission on your ''~/work'' directory only====
<pre>
  chmod 700 ~/work
</pre>

====Example 2: setting permission on your ''~/work'' directory and everything below====
<pre>
  chmod 700 -R ~/work
</pre>