Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: symbolic link filemodes unchangeable.
Summary: because the modes on a symbolic link are never used
Keywords: ln, links, symbolic
Message-ID: <1989Nov16.004352.6195@virtech.uucp>
Date: 16 Nov 89 00:43:52 GMT
References: <24818@sequent.UUCP>
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc.
Lines: 15

In article <24818@sequent.UUCP>, paulr@sequent.UUCP (Paul Reger) writes:
> Why can't you change the filemodes of a symbolic link ? :

Because the modes of the link are never used.  Restricting the write 
access on the link file does not restrict the write access on the 
file that it is linked to.  That is why there is no lopen(), or lchmod()
system call (would be similar to lstat()).



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