$ mkdir d $ cd d $ whoami > root $ id -Gn daemon > daemon bin $ touch a Chown and chgrp with no take ownership permission fails: $ su daemon $ chown daemon a > chown: changing ownership of `a': Operation not permitted $ chgrp daemon a > chgrp: changing group of `a': Operation not permitted $ nfs4acl --set 'daemon:rwo::allow' a > a: Operation not permitted Add the take_ownership permission. This is reflected in the file masks; the file mode cannot show this though: $ su $ nfs4acl --set 'daemon:rwo::allow' a Chown and chgrp to an arbitrary other user or group fails: $ su daemon $ chown root a > chown: changing ownership of `a': Operation not permitted $ chgrp root a > chgrp: changing group of `a': Operation not permitted Changing the mode makes that an upper bound of the permissions granted, even when the file mode stays the same: $ su $ ls -l a | cut -d ' ' -f1 > -rw-rw---- $ chmod 660 a Chown and chgrp to the same user or a group the process is in now fails because the masks now do not grant change_ownership access: $ su daemon $ chown daemon a > chown: changing ownership of `a': Operation not permitted $ chgrp daemon a > chgrp: changing group of `a': Operation not permitted $ chgrp bin a > chgrp: changing group of `a': Operation not permitted Add back change_ownership: $ su $ nfs4acl --set 'daemon:rwo::allow' a Now, chgrp to one of the groups the process is in and chown to the same user succeeds: $ su daemon $ chgrp daemon a $ chgrp bin a $ chown daemon a $ su $ cd .. $ rm -rf d