Recommendations for setting permissions: For most files = -rw------- (default, allows only you to read and write them.) C/C++ programs and other programs = -rwx------ (also default, allows only you to read, execute and write them.) See the man page on umask for information on how default permissions are set. For more information go to: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/local/computing/unix/permissions.shtml