Make sure that getfacl always adds at least one space between the permissions in an acl entry and the effective permissions comment. Cry immediately if we are not running as root. $ require_root $ umask 022 $ mkdir d $ setfacl -dm group:loooooooooooooooooooooooonggroup:rwx d $ getfacl -cde d > user::rwx > group::r-x #effective:r-x > group:loooooooooooooooooooooooonggroup:rwx #effective:rwx > mask::rwx > other::r-x > $ rm -r d