Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: What does SUID, SGID and Sticky bits do on inappropriate files? Message-ID: Date: 25 Dec 90 22:53:57 GMT References: <1990Dec25.032451.25017@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Organization: The World Lines: 19 In-Reply-To: djm@eng.umd.edu's message of 25 Dec 90 17:55:01 GMT From: djm@eng.umd.edu (David J. MacKenzie) [Responding to me] >> Interestingly, on SunOS 4.x I can't even set the sticky bit on plain >> or executable files (thinking it was the utilities ls and/or chmod >> fighting with me I wrote a quick hack to do it thru chmod() and read >> it back with stat(), no dice, never got set.) I was able to set the >> sticky and setid bits on a device file though. > >Regular users can't, but the superuser can. Whoops, you're absolutely right, I stand corrected. Most unix versions restrict setting of the sticky bit to the super user for obvious reasons (making texts sticky could impact system performance in global ways.) -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD