The result of ls command will depend of umask. g+s will set sgid to the file. Check [here][1] for more deep information about SUID SGID so if your umask for example is 044 the result will be something like: -rw-r--r-- 1 romeo UsersGrp 0 Jan 31 20:58 deux -rw-r-Sr-- 1 romeo canard 0 Jan 31 20:58 un [1]: http://www.linuxnix.com/2011/12/suid-set-suid-linuxunix.html