On Sat, Oct 29, 2005 at 12:38:34AM -0400, Eben King wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Oct 2005, Sick Twist wrote:
>
> > Having used Linux for some time, I thought I had a clear understanding of
> > how file permissions work. However, I have no idea why I am able to
> delete a
> > file owned by someone else for which I do not have write permission:
>
> Whether you can delete a file depends on having write permission in its
> directory, not on the permissions of the file itself. If you want to
> truncate it and keep everything else -- inode, permissions, etc. -- the same
> (e.g. "cat /dev/null > file"), you need to have write permission on the
> file.
Oh now you've gone and messed everything up. I had this all worked out,
too, and now you've wrecked my understanding. ;-}
If the permissions on the file itself don't have anything to do with
whether one can write to or delete the file in a given directory, then
what are they for? Can you show a scenario where the permissions on the
original file do make a difference?
Paul
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