Re: TOCTOU bug in make(1)

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2022 at 10:51:47PM +0200, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
 > >  > This is necessary for historic reasons because old UNIX systems allows
 > >  > unlink(2) on directories with bad consequences.
 > > 
 > > Also, even if unlink() on a directory actually results in a correct
 > > rmdir, changing the behavior of that function so that delete-target-
 > > on-error sometimes removes directories and sometimes doesn't,
 > > depending on the OS or even on the filesystem in use, doesn't seem
 > > like a good idea.
 > 
 > Actually, the correct and expected behavior is that it fails on
 > directories. unlink and rmdir are supposed to be symmetrical in that
 > regard.

Correct in the sense of not corrupting the filesystem, which as you're
aware is not the case if it simply removes the link.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost