What does a + mean at the end of the permissions from ls -l?

Question

What is the plus sign at the end of the permissions telling me?

ls -l
total 4
drwxrwxrwx+ 2 benson avahi-autoipd 4096 Jan 27 17:37 docs

Here's the context:

cat /etc/issue
\CentOS release 5.3 (Final)
Kernel \r on an \m

Answer 1

It means your file has extended permissions called ACLs.

You have to run getfacl <file> to see the full permissions.

See Access Control Lists for more details.

Answer 2

via man page 'ls'

"If the file or directory has extended security information, the permissions field printed by the -l option is followed by a '+' character."

This generally means the file is encumbered with access restrictions outside of the traditional Unix permissions - likely Access Control List (ACL).

Answer 3

From the acl package in Ubuntu :

$ man acl | grep -1 '+'
     •   For files that have a default ACL or an access ACL that contains more than the three required ACL entries, the ls(1) utility in the long form produced by ls -l
         displays a plus sign (+) after the permission string.
$