Re: lynx-dev Re: who owns what

[Greg Marr]

>on this system, i cannot change the permission of my symlink in  /tmp :
>i tried it both from  /homes/purslow  & from  /tmp  & was told:
>"Cannot access  /tmp/dagger : permission denied".

You can not change the permission of a symlink.  Attempting to change the
permission of a symlink really attempts to change the permission of the file
that the symlink points to.

>if the symlink permission is not observed by the system,
>i wonder why i am denied permission to change its permissions:

You're trying to change the permission of the file it points to, which
presumably you don't own.

>it looks very much like a simple security device
>to prevent the kind of abuses we are discussing

Nope.

>(BTW is this the `sticky bit' at work?  i need reminding what that does).

No, the sticky bit prevents user A from deleting user B's file from a
world-writable directory.

>further, there appears to be no good reason for UNIX generally
>not to observe symlink permissions:

Yes there is.

>for the kinds of case
>you & others describe, where one user uses another's  .rc  file,
>the owner can make it  705 , while the other user's symlink's  700
>-- matching the practice on this system -- is adequate for his needs.

If it honored the permission 700 on the symlink, he'd be able to write to
other
people's files just by making symlinks to them.

--
Greg Marr
address@hidden
"We thought you were dead." 
"I was, but I'm better now." - Sheridan, "The Summoning"