Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!wugate!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!sequent!paulr
From: paulr@sequent.UUCP (Paul Reger)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: symbolic link filemodes unchangeable.
Keywords: ln, links, symbolic
Message-ID: <24818@sequent.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 89 17:43:33 GMT
Reply-To: paulr@sequent.UUCP (Paul Reger)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc
Lines: 39

Why can't you change the filemodes of a symbolic link ? :

% echo > some_file
% chmod 321 some_file
% ls -l some_file
--wx-w---x  1 paulr           0 Nov 14 09:37 some_file*
% ln -s some_file some_link
% ls -l some_link
lrwxr-xr-x  1 paulr           9 Nov 14 09:38 some_link -> some_file*
% chmod 222 some_link
% ls -l some_file
-rwxrwxrwx  1 paulr           0 Nov 14 09:37 some_file*
% umask 000
% rm some_link
% ln -s some_file some_link
% ls -l some_file some_link
-rwxrwxrwx  1 paulr           0 Nov 14 09:37 some_file*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 paulr           9 Nov 14 09:38 some_link -> some_file*
% chmod 222 some_link
% ls -l some_file some_link
--w--w--w-  1 paulr           0 Nov 14 09:37 some_file
lrwxrwxrwx  1 paulr           9 Nov 14 09:38 some_link -> some_file

It appears that chmod changes the object that is pointed to, not the
pointer.  Further, umask is meaningful to creation of the link.

But I could not find anyway to change the filemodes of the link...

Tried looking in the fine manual.  Found no reference.

tia,

			paulr    (Paul Reger)
	      Sequent Computer Systems, Beaverton Oregon
	     {uunet,ucbvax!rutgers!ogccse}!sequent!paulr
-- 
			paulr    (Paul Reger)
	      Sequent Computer Systems, Beaverton Oregon
	     {uunet,ucbvax!rutgers!ogccse}!sequent!paulr