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From: chuck@felix.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: Why is Ultrix 2.0 chown(2) restricted to super-user?
Message-ID: <13282@felix.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Nov-87 12:00:24 EST
Article-I.D.: felix.13282
Posted: Wed Nov 18 12:00:24 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 06:31:29 EST
References: <12691@felix.UUCP>
Sender: chuck@felix.UUCP
Reply-To: howie@cunixc.columbia.edu (Howie Kaye)
Organization: Columbia University
Lines: 13
Approved: zemon@felix.UUCP

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I was recently wondering about this also.  It seems illogical to
require a user to be root to change the group of a program, and then
supply a suid'ed program to allow them to do so anyway.  As longer as
the user owns the file, and is in the group it is being set to,
they should be able to change it.  This would be easy enough to check
for in the kernel.  It is probably a holdover from the days when a
user was only in one group at a time.

------------------------------------------------------------
Howie Kaye				howie@columbia.edu
Columbia University 			hlkcu@cuvma.bitnet
Systems Group				...!rutgers!columbia!howie