Messages in this thread |  | | From | Andreas Dilger <> | Subject | Re: Bug in the file attributes ? | Date | Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:44:27 -0700 (MST) |
| |
Xavier Ordoquy writes: > I just made a manipulation that disturbs me. So I'm asking whether it's a > bug or a features. > > user> su > root> echo "test" > test > root> ls -l > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5 Mar 29 19:14 test > root> exit > user> rm test > rm: remove write-protected file `test'? y > user> ls test > ls: test: No such file or directory > > This is in the user home directory. > Since the file is read only for the user, it should not be able to remove > it. Moreover, the user can't write to test.
This is definitely not a bug. Deleting a file (under *nix) does not "modify" the file at all, it is modifying the directory where the file resides. In this case, a user _will_ have permission to write into their home directory, so they can delete the file, but not modify it.
Why do such a thing? If you have group/world write permission on a directory, then people who have write permission to the _directory_ should be able to delete files even if they don't own them. However, if you set the "sticky" bit on the directory (chmod +t /dir), then only the owner of the file can delete it, like in /tmp.
Cheers, Andreas -- Andreas Dilger \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto, \ would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?" http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/ -- Dogbert - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
|  |