Bug 4900

Summary: file permissions bug on soft links
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: margarita
Component: basesystemAssignee: David Lawrence <dkl>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-09-07 13:53:11 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:

Description margarita 1999-09-04 02:30:07 UTC 
If the real file is owned by root the soft link cannot be
changed to group user even by superuser.

Example: Netscape mail file as /root/nsmail/Inbox

I wanted to ftp a the file from work to check my mail
from netscape. Since security prevents a root ftp login
(that's good) I log in as a mortal user. I cannot get
the mail because the user permissions granted to root
are unchangable. I have to telnet in as a mortal user,
su to root, copy the file to the users directory, change
the permissions to 666, log out, ftp back to my site
and get the file. Ugh!!
Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 1999-09-07 13:53:59 UTC 
Symbolic links have no real permissions.
Relying on being able to change the owner/mode/etc. of symbolic
links and not modifying the actual file is a bad idea.