Re: [Sheflug] A question on Ownership

[Andrew Basterfield <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 22:03:37 +0100
"Chris J" <cej [at] nccnet.co.uk> wrote:

> [1] as a normal user; for some reason root can traverse without execute
> a quick test has revealed[2] ... which seems obscure to me, but hey, who
> am I do argue with the superuser :)

root can traverse all directories. A normal user can prevent themselves
from entering a directory they own by chmod u-x ing it.

If a directory on a read-only filesystem had no x bit then how could the
superuser traverse it?

> [2] which I didn't think was possible...anyone know if (a) this is a new
> property of ext2fs on Linux[3], and/or (b) do other UNIXes mirror this 
> behaviour?

[Open|Net]BSD mirrors this behaviour, and seeing as modern BSD generally
operates the same way as ancient BSD I'd say it has probably been like
this for a long time.

--Andrew

-- 
sparc sun4c stuff : http://www.lostgeneration.freeserve.co.uk/sparc
personal email    : bob at lostgeneration dot freeserve dot co dot uk
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