[bug #28341] chown does not support non-root usage

[anonymous]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?28341>

                 Summary: chown does not support non-root usage
                 Project: GNU Core Utilities
            Submitted by: None
            Submitted on: Fri 18 Dec 2009 07:58:38 PM UTC
                Category: None
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: None
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

Any attempts to change a file from one owner to another fails, even if the
owner is a member of the same group, and the directory is writable.  For
example:

> dir -a
drwxrwsr-x  7 www-data www 4.0K 2009-09-14 14:14 .
drwxrwsr-x 11 www-data www 4.0K 2009-11-05 16:16 ..
-rw-rw-r--  1 www-data www 2.1K 2009-12-18 14:16 file.txt

> chown user file.txt
chown: changing ownership of `file.txt': Operation not permitted

Yet this works just file:

> cp file.txt file.txt.takeown
> rm file.txt
> mv file.txt.takeown
> touch -m -d 2009-12-18 14:16 file.txt
> chown 664 file.txt
> dir
-rw-rw-r--  1 user www 2.1K 2009-12-18 14:16 file.txt

The chown command should detect conditions like this and allow for the user
to take over ownership of a file without the need for unnecessary file access
or adjustment commands.





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