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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!btnet!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!usenet2.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!usenet1.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!uknet!newsfeed.ed.ac.uk!edcogsci!richard From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Subject: Re: Why chown(2) is privileged? Message-ID: <E1AECn.3rG@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> Organization: HCRC, University of Edinburgh References: <847786081.259851@panacea.insight.co.za> <E0vMsx.Bp0@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <56r47r$3sr@uriah.heep.sax.de> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 19:33:58 GMT Lines: 17 In article <56r47r$3sr@uriah.heep.sax.de> joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) writes: >...and perhaps to prevent people from shooting in their feet. Try >unpacking a tar tape/file on a SysV where the files and directories >are owned by root and are not writable by you Well, it does have that effect, but if chown were allowed, the Right Solution would be for tar to not chown each directory until *after* writing all the files and subdirectories in it. Of course, one cannot expect System V to do this... Alternatively it could just change any directories not owned by you to be world-writable, or some similar hack. But it's a problem with tar, not chown. -- Richard -- "Nothing can stop me now... except microscopic germs"