chmod angiver filrettigheder på unix-systemer. Det vil sige, at man bruger chmod til at angive, hvem der kan læse en fil, skrive til den og afvikle den...
et udpluk fra chmod's man-side:
NAME
chmod - change file access permissions
SYNOPSIS
chmod [OPTION]... MODE[,MODE]... FILE...
chmod [OPTION]... OCTAL-MODE FILE...
chmod [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of chmod. chmod changes the
permissions of each given file according to mode, which can be either a
symbolic representation of changes to make, or an octal number repre-
senting the bit pattern for the new permissions.
The format of a symbolic mode is `[ugoa...][[+-=][rwxXs-
tugo...]...][,...]'. Multiple symbolic operations can be given, sepa-
rated by commas.
A combination of the letters `ugoa' controls which users' access to the
file will be changed: the user who owns it (u), other users in the
file's group (g), other users not in the file's group (o), or all users
(a). If none of these are given, the effect is as if `a' were given,
but bits that are set in the umask are not affected.
The operator `+' causes the permissions selected to be added to the
existing permissions of each file; `-' causes them to be removed; and
`=' causes them to be the only permissions that the file has.
The letters `rwxXstugo' select the new permissions for the affected
users: read (r), write (w), execute (or access for directories) (x),
execute only if the file is a directory or already has execute permis-
sion for some user (X), set user or group ID on execution (s), sticky
(t), the permissions granted to the user who owns the file (u), the
permissions granted to other users who are members of the file's group
(g), and the permissions granted to users that are in neither of the
two preceding categories (o).
A numeric mode is from one to four octal digits (0-7), derived by
adding up the bits with values 4, 2, and 1. Any omitted digits are
assumed to be leading zeros. The first digit selects the set user ID
(4) and set group ID (2) and sticky (1) attributes. The second digit
selects permissions for the user who owns the file: read (4), write
(2), and execute (1); the third selects permissions for other users in
the file's group, with the same values; and the fourth for other users
not in the file's group, with the same values.
chmod never changes the permissions of symbolic links; the chmod system
call cannot change their permissions. This is not a problem since the
permissions of symbolic links are never used. However, for each sym-
bolic link listed on the command line, chmod changes the permissions of
the pointed-to file. In contrast, chmod ignores symbolic links encoun-
tered during recursive directory traversals.
Det bedste sted at læse om .htaccess er klart på apache's egen side... jeg har været så flink at finde et direkte link til dig:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/howto/auth.html