*BSD News Article 82679


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From: Mark Lehrer <edge@mud.imperium.net>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Why chown(2) is privileged?
Date: 11 Nov 1996 14:22:18 -0500
Organization: Imperium Internet
Lines: 11
Message-ID: <w7iv7cjv2t.fsf@mud.imperium.net>
References: <CANDY.96Oct24222129@xxx.fct.kgc.co.jp>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mud.imperium.net
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34

candy@fct.kgc.co.jp (Toshihiro Kanda) writes:

>    Hello.  Chown(2) fails if non super-user try to change the owner
> uid of his/her files.  Why does BSD disallow non super-user to
> transfer ownership of files to the others?

Ok, i figured it out - in order for non-root users to use this
command, this would have to be a setuid root program... so it
is probably not worth the security risk; especially with a
program like chown!!