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On 13/02/2015 16:31, Alan Mackenzie wrote: |
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> Hi, Gentoo. |
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> |
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> I'm clearing out dross from my home directory, as me (not as root) and |
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> I've just deleted this file: |
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> |
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> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 11 2011 grep |
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> |
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> , simply by typing $ rm grep. I was prompted with: |
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> |
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> rm: remove write-protected regular empty file ■grep■? |
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> |
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> , to which I responded 'y'. The file is now gone. |
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> |
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> So, as a non root user, I've managed to delete a file belonging to root, |
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> to which I have no write access. This is crazy! I'm not happy about |
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> this. What's going on? |
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> |
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|
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|
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Nothing is going on, the system is working as designed and is doing it |
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correctly. It's not the permissions of a file that apply to deletion, |
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it's the permissions of the directory it's in. Because that's all a |
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delete is - remove one linee from the directory index and the file goes |
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away. |
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It's also the exact opposite of creating the file, how does that work? |
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Well you can't have write permissions yet on a file that has not been |
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created, the permissions must be the directory. Same with delete. |
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Trust me, there is no arguing with this - Unix has always worked this |
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way and likely always will. |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
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