i'm feeling a bit stupid here, but: swilson@swilson-mbp-vdebian:/home$ sudo kill -HUP 1 swilson@swilson-mbp-vdebian:/home$ whoami; cat /etc/group | grep staff; ls -ld /home/test; echo "" > /home/test/blah swilson staff:x:50:swilson drwxrwxr-x 2 root staff 4096 Jun 14 12:02 /home/test bash: /home/test/blah: Permission denied