Now type ls -l /etc/resolv.conf.

This will give you output that looks something like this:

-rw-r-r- 1 root root 119 Feb 23 1997 /etc/resolv.conf

The -l option to ls requests all that additional information. The info on
the right is easy: The size of the file is 119 bytes; the date the file
was last changed is February 23, 1997; and the file's name is
/etc/resolv.conf. On the left side of the screen, things are a little more
complicated.

First, the brief, technical explanation: The -rw-r-r- is the mode of the
file, the 1 is the number of hard links to this file (or the number of
files in a directory), and the two roots are the user and group owning the
file, respectively.

So that was cryptic. Let's go through it slowly.

File Ownership

Every file has two owners: a user and a group. The above case is a little
confusing because there's a group called root in addition to the root
user. Groups are just collections of users who are collectively permitted
access to some part of the system. A good example is a games group. Just
to be mean, you might create a group called games on your computer and
then set up your system so that only people in a games group are allowed
to play games.

Here's a more practical example. Consider a case in which you're setting