Bug 124699
| Summary: | rm calls access() on its target which is not a good idea | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Fedora] Fedora | Reporter: | David Howells <dhowells> |
| Component: | coreutils | Assignee: | Tim Waugh <twaugh> |
| Status: | CLOSED RAWHIDE | QA Contact: | |
| Severity: | medium | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | medium | ||
| Version: | 2 | ||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | 5.2.1-12 | Doc Type: | Bug Fix |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2004-06-02 18:20:47 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
Please try coreutils-5.2.1-12, which has a patch from Jim Meyering for this problem. Here's what Jim Meyering says about this patch by the way:
> Unfortunately, rm (without -f) must call access (via euidaccess) to
> determine whether it needs to issue a prompt. With this patch, rm now
> calls both lstat and access for each non-symlink it might unlink.
> Another good reason to use -f.
Okay. I think I see what this is getting at... you use access(W_OK) to decide whether to issue a prompt or not. BTW, I tried coreutils-5.2.1-12, and that seems to evade the problem of dodgy symlinks by lstat'ing them first, which will do. David |
Description of problem: The rm program calls access() on the target file before calling unlink() on it. This is unnecessary (unlink should tell you everything you need to know), and may hang rm (it may be a symlink pointing to something on an unreachable NFS server). Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): coreutils-5.2.1-7 is what I've got installed, but it's not restricted to that version. How reproducible: Easily. 100%. Steps to Reproduce: 1. touch x 2. rm x Or: 1. Mount a directory off an NFS server without any special options (so no -ointr, for example) 2. Make a symlink from somewhere outside that mountpoint to somewhere inside that mountpoint. 3. Power off the NFS server 4. Try and rm the symlink. Actual results: rm hangs as it tries to run access() on what the symlink points to. If rm is traced, this can be observed: access("x", W_OK) = 0 unlink("x") = 0 Expected results: rm should just delete the symlink. Additional info: