For example,
stealth% ls ariel.pubkey.asc krbauth-problem server-misc asn1 ldap sh-lost bin linux signatures ca-admin logs sounds ...
shows some of the files and directories in one user's home directory (the listing has been truncated for brevity's sake).
To look at details about these files and directories, you can use ls -l which shows a long listing:
stealth% ls -l total 6100 -rwxr-xr-x 1 ariel 725 Jul 10 15:07 %backup%~ drwxr-xr-x 2 ariel 512 Jun 13 16:19 Mail drwxr-xr-x 2 ariel 512 Jan 3 1997 News -rw-r--r-- 1 ariel 11476 Jul 15 15:20 Xax500 -rw------- 1 ariel 2273 Jul 25 13:18 ais-off ....
The entries which start with a d, like the Mail and News entries above, are directories. Entries that start with an l are symbolic links. The other entries are files.
The next several letters, rwx and some hyphens, indicates who can read, write, or execute the files. The first three letters show what the owner can do: usually, these are r (read), w (write), and x (execute). They are always shown in the order rwx. If one of them is missing and a hyphen is in its place, e.g. r-x, the permission corresponding to the missing letter has been taken away. In the above example, the owner does not have execute permissions for Xax500 because the x in the first rwx pattern has been replaced with a hyphen.
The next three letters indicate the permissions for the group associated with the file. This group can be seen by using ls -lg:
stealth% ls -lg | more total 6100 -rwxr-xr-x 1 ariel root 725 Jul 10 15:07 %backup%~ drwxr-xr-x 2 ariel staff 512 Jun 13 16:19 Mail drwxr-xr-x 2 ariel rad 512 Jan 3 1997 News -rw-r--r-- 1 ariel root 11476 Jul 15 15:20 Xax500 -rw------- 1 ariel root 2273 Jul 25 13:18 ais-off ...
In the above example, the members of the staff group cannot write into the Mail directory because the w letter in the second rwx pattern has been replaced by a hyphen.
The next three letters indicate the permissions for everyone else. In the above example, people outside of the root group and the owner cannot read, write, or execute the ais-off file, because all three letters in the third rwx pattern have been replaced by hyphens.
If you want to see information about just one file, you can use ls -l filename:
stealth% ls -l ais-off -rw------- 1 ariel 2273 Jul 25 13:18 ais-off
If you want to see the information about one directory, but not the files in it, you need to use ls -ld:
stealth% ls -ld Mail drwxr-xr-x 2 ariel 512 Jun 13 16:19 Mail
You can see information about symbolic links by using the ls -l command:
stealth% ls -l fileserver-tests lrwxrwxrwx 1 ariel 32 Jun 16 10:04 fileserver-tests -> /stealth1/ariel/fileserver-tests
And if you want information about the file or directory the link points to, you can use ls -l on that file, or ls -ld if it is a directory:
stealth% ls -ld /stealth1/ariel/fileserver-tests drwxr-xr-x 5 ariel 512 Jan 3 1997 /stealth1/ariel/fileserver-tests
More information about this command is available using the command man ls.