Re: Minor security issue in copying permission bits

[Paul Eggert]

Lasse Collin <address@hidden> writes:

> From practical point of view, the original owner always had all 
> permission to access the original file.

True in the usual case, but is that true even with ACLs?  That's not
clear to me.  The ACL rules can get pretty hairy.  But I digress....

> I wonder how many programs copy permission bits as is. For example, "cp 
> foo bar" copies permission bits but masks them with umask.

That's the most common pattern.  Less common is "cp -p" style.

> The programs that need to copy the owner, group and permissions, would 
> need some extra code to copy ACLs and EAs.

Yes.  This stuff isn't standardized though.  Maybe when it's better
supported we can add it to gzip.