Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:22920 alt.security:1114
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!milton!wiml
From: wiml@milton.u.washington.edu (William Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,alt.security
Subject: Hard links to directories: why not?
Keywords: ln, directories, security...
Message-ID: <5222@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 18 Jul 90 07:51:08 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 13


   In the man entry for ln(1) (and for link(2)),  it says that
hard links may not be made to directories, unless the linker is
the super-user (in order to make '.' and '..', I suppose). My 
question is: why not? (and is there any reason that I, if I'm
root, shouldn't do this?) It seems perfectly harmless to me, although 
it would allow the user to make a pretty convoluted directory structure,
that's the user's priviledge. So I suppose it's probably a security
issue somehow (restrictions of this sort seem to be). Hence the
crosspost to alt.security. 
-- 
wiml@blake.acs.washington.edu       Seattle, Washington  | No sig under
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