Step 1: To fix “Reading A File: Permission Denied” on Linux, you can change the file’s permissions using the chmod command. First, check the current permissions with ls -l, where the output shows permissions for the owner, group, and others in the format rwxrwxrwx. Use chmod to modify permissions, such as chmod +r filename to add read permission for the file. If you don’t have permission to change permissions, use sudo before the chmod command.

Syntax:

ls -l  or ls -l filename

Now change the file permission so that the user can read the file. For that, we have to chmod command specifying whom you want to give permission to owner/user (u), group (g), others (o), or all (a) followed by the ‘+’ symbol which means to give permission and then that followed by the ‘r’ which means ‘read‘ and after that filename.

Syntax:

chmod [recipient]+r filename

Using sudo Command

You can use the sudo command to run commands as a superuser, allowing you to access files and perform actions that require elevated privileges. For example, if you encounter “Permission Denied” while reading a file, you can use sudo cat filename to read the file with superuser permissions. This grants you the necessary access to bypass permission restrictions and read the file content.

Syntax:

sudo cat <filename>

Example: Using sudo with cat command to read demo.txt file

sudo cat demo.txt

Change file Ownership

You can change the ownership of the file using the chown command. For instance, if the file is owned by another user and you have permission to change ownership, you can use sudo chown your_username filename to change ownership to your user account. This allows you to read the file without encountering “Permission Denied.”

Syntax:

sudo chown <your_username> <filename>