Re: chmod drwxrwxrwT

[Philip Rowlands]

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004, Mario Lombardo wrote:

>In the last triplet, a capital "T" isn't discussed on the man page.  I know
>it's sticky, but it means something different from drwxrwxrwt.  Where can I
>get more info on this?  I'd like to learn.

$ info coreutils 'Mode Structure'

   In addition to the three sets of three permissions listed above, a
file's permissions have three special components, which affect only
executable files (programs) and, on some systems, directories:

  3. save the program's text image on the swap device so it will load
     more quickly when run (called the "sticky bit").



AIUI, this is more of a historical flag, used to indicate to the kernel
that the executable is frequently used, thus should be given
preferential retention to "stick" in memory, hence the "sticky bit". I
don't believe the VM layer of modern systems pay much attention to it.


Cheers,
Phil