Understanding Access Control List (ACL)

Windows NT/2000, UNIX based systems, Novell Netware, and Digital OpenVMS are some of the operating systems that have Access Control List in them.

The administrator has the rights to assign a particular right to a particular user using the access control list. The entries found in the access control list are called the access control entries which specify the user name, the role of the user and the access masks mentioned by the string of bits.

System objects like the files, folders, and programs are controlled by the access control list. Permissions like read, write, and execute are given by the access control lists.

Without proper access permissions if a user tries to access a particular system object he might get an ‘access denied by access control list’ error.

For this he has to get the right permissions from the administrator so that the particular users name is added to the access control list with proper permissions, so that he can access that particular system object.