# Default Permissions and umask
The `umask` on Photon OS is set to `0027`.
When you create a new file with the `touch` command as root, the default on Photon OS is to set the permissions to `0640`--which translates to `read-write` for user, `read` for group, and no access for others. Here's an example:
touch newfile.md
stat newfile.md
File: 'newfile.md'
Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 4096 regular empty file
Device: 801h/2049d Inode: 316454 Links: 1
Access: (0640/-rw-r-----) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root)
When you create a directory as root, Photon OS sets the permissions to `0750`:
mkdir newdir
stat newdir
File: 'newdir'
Size: 4096 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 directory
Device: 801h/2049d Inode: 316455 Links: 2
Access: (0750/drwxr-x---) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root)
Because the `mkdir` command uses the umask to modify the permissions placed on newly created files or directories, you can see `umask` at work in the permissions of the new directory. Its default permissions are set at `0750` after the umask subtracts `0027` from the full set of open permissions, `0777`.
Similarly, a new file begins as `0666` if you were to set umask to `0000`. But because umask is set by default to `0027`, a new file's permissions are set to `0640`.
So be aware of the default permissions on the directories and files that you create. Some system services and applications might require permissions other than the default. The `systemd` network service, for example, requires user-defined configuration files to be set to `644`, not the default of `640`. Thus, after you create a network configuration file with a `.network` extension, you must run the `chmod` command to set the new file's mode bits to `644`. For example:
chmod 644 10-static-en.network
For more information on permissions, see the man pages for `stat`, `umask`, and `acl`.