beware chown

From: tsh@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 08:40:53 EDT

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Hi all,
I just discovered the hard way that the default action of
'chown' is to change the owner of the file pointed to
by a symlink, rather than change the owner of the symlink.

Wouldnt it be more sensible to make the default action the
safe one (i.e. change the owner of the symlink) rather
than the unsafe one?

Many users make symlinks in their own directories pointing
to system files, and a recursive chown down a user's
directory tree can cause mayhem...

Cheers,
Terry

Terry Horsnell (tsh@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk)
I.T. Manager
Medical Research Council
Lab of Molecular Biology
Hills Road
CAMBRIDGE CB2 2QH
U.K.
Phone: +44 (0)1223 248011
Fax: +44 (0)1223 213556

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