Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!oxtrap!mudos!mju
From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: New fs/protect.c that allows mortals to chown()
Message-ID: <708.255F7654@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us>
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 89 22:03:51 EST
Organization: FidoNet node 1:120/129 - Starship Enterprise, Ann Arbor MI

In article <1989Nov13.192902.15473@world.std.com>, madd@world.std.com (jim frost) writes:
 >I honestly think chown should be a root-only; it's much simpler that
 >way and if a user really needs to chown a file, logging in as the
 >other user and using "cp" works great.

If you want chown to be root-only, you don't have to apply my patches.
I honostly think that they make MINIX a lot easier to use, especially
if you don't have the root password.  I know that if *I* was
administrating a system, I sure wouldn't want to be called every time
someone needed to chown a file!  

(Hypothetical situation: Say I need to uucp a sensitive file over to
my home machine.  User "uucp" needs to be able to read it, in order
to send it, but I don't want to make the file readable to everyone.
So, I copy it to /usr/spool/uucppublic, chmod it to mode 600, and
then chown it to uucp.  I tell uucp to remove the file when it's
done.  Now, uucp can read the file to transmit it, but no one else
can.  It doesn't really matter that it will end up mode 666 on my
home machine, because that isn't public-access, and I'm the only one
who uses it.  How do you do this if you don't have access to chown?)

--  
Marc Unangst
Internet: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us
UUCP    : ...!uunet!sharkey!mudos!mju
Fidonet : Marc Unangst of 1:120/129.0
BBS     : The Starship Enterprise, 1200/2400 bps, +1 313-665-2832
ÿ