cspencer@bbncca.ARPA (Clifford Spencer) (11/27/84)
In v7 and 4.2, with the possible exception of
write access, the access system call always returns
success for the super user. this seems wrong
to me. whether one is super user or not, if execute bits
are not set, that's all she wrote. any wisdom as to why
a call to check execute permission (i.e access(filename, 01))
should return 0 for a plain file with no execute permissions?
cliff
--
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cspencer@bbncca.ARPArcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (11/28/84)
> In v7 and 4.2, with the possible exception of > write access, the access system call always returns > success for the super user. this seems wrong > to me. whether one is super user or not, if execute bits > are not set, that's all she wrote. any wisdom as to why > a call to check execute permission (i.e access(filename, 01)) > should return 0 for a plain file with no execute permissions? This is even curiouser if you peruse the documentation. Access(2) claims that "...it is only access bits that are checked." However, a file even with mode 0 is regarded as executable by access. Exec doesn't think it's executable (as the author of the parent article indicated) and the documentation says as much: "Even for the super-user, at least one of the execute-permission bits must be set for a file to be executed." That's a good thing in a way; it can keep you from doing a few stupid things if you're wandering around as root with "." in your path (which is a bad idea for other reasons, however). -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Reality? Gad, that's worse than puberty!