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From: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: symbolic link filemodes unchangeable.
Keywords: ln, links, symbolic
Message-ID: <833@ccssrv.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 89 23:20:24 GMT
References: <24818@sequent.UUCP>
Reply-To: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison)
Organization: Control-C Software, Inc., Beaverton, OR
Lines: 21

In article <24818@sequent.UUCP> paulr@sequent.UUCP (Paul Reger) writes:

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

Another candidate for the Frequently Asked Questions list.

There is no need to set the permissions of a symbolic link, because they are
never used.

Hard links have existed for a long time, but symbolic links are a more recent
development.  It has always (at least since 6th edition) been the case that
the permissions belong to the file, and are not affected by which name (link)
is used to access it.  Symbolic links continue to behave in this same way.

That a symbolic link even has its own set of permissions is largely an
artifact of the implementation.  Perhaps someday ls will be revised to omit
them, since they are meaningless (and hence to display them is confusing).

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