Subject: Re: Symlink ownership
To: None <Chris_G_Demetriou@BALVENIE.PDL.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Niklas Hallqvist <niklas@appli.se>
List: current-users
Date: 07/25/1995 19:33:51
>>>>> "Chris" == Chris G Demetriou <Chris_G_Demetriou@BALVENIE.PDL.CS.CMU.EDU> writes:

>> > Not quite.  The idea is to present symlinks as objects which
>> don't > have owners (which is currently not true; this is
>> preparation for a > day on which it may be).  But _something_ has
>> to go into the st_uid > and st_gid fields of the struct stat; the
>> choice was to copy the > ownership of the containing directory.
>> 
>> Would it be better for the fake ownership to come from the
>> symlink's target if one exists, and the directory if the target
>> does not?

Chris> Not really; it's not uncommon to symlink to things that you
Chris> don't own.


I wasn't paying attention in the beginning of this thread.  What
really was the problem that these fake ownerships introduce?  If we
really like them be "not-owned", perhaps "nobody" should own them (the
default root-mapping of NFS), or maybe the "real [ug]id" of the
stat-calling process.  Hmm, the former wouldn't solve the sticky bit
dir problem, unless symlinks were special cased in unlink.

Well I'm not really knowing what I'm whining about, so don't flame me,
I just wanted to put in some creative (in stupidity, if not anything
else) ideas into this thread.

NH

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