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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcvax!ukc!its63b!simon
From: simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Simon Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: access(2) question
Message-ID: <489@its63b.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 21-Jun-87 17:36:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: its63b.489
Posted: Sun Jun 21 17:36:42 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jun-87 03:43:03 EDT
References: <530@applix.UUCP> <488@its63b.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Simon Brown)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Edinburgh University
Lines: 27
Keywords: access permissions

In article <488@its63b.ed.ac.uk> simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Simon Brown) writes:
>In article <530@applix.UUCP> mark@applix.UUCP (Mark Fox) writes:
>>Does anybody know why access checks file accessibility using the real [ug]id
>>in place of the effective [ug]id? It seems to me that access should agree
>>with open(2) as far as whether a program has write or read access to a file.
>

So, as a followup - try three guesses as to how the BSD4.2 test(1) program
implements "test -r", "test -w", etc...? Yes, dead right, it uses access!!!!
Great, eh? Even worse, it uses it even when trying to check write-access in
a directory, which will ALWAYS fail 'cos you can't write in a directory
directly. Of course, when you say "test -w directory" what you REALLY want
to know is whether you can create/delete files there, but of course test(1)
is *far* too stupid to realize this! Anyonw know if this is fixed in 4.3 (being
too lazy to check for myself)?

	%{
	    Simon!
	%}

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| Simon Brown 		         | UUCP:  seismo!mcvax!ukc!its63b!simon
| Department of Computer Science | JANET: simon@uk.ac.ed.its63b
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