Re: A question about extended attributes of filesystem objects (setfattr command)

[Michael Kerrisk]

Gidday,

> I have a question regarding
>  Attributes of symlinks vs. the files pointed to
> 
> If I try to attach name:value pair to object symlink file
> then I'll get: "Operation not permitted"

What file system are you using?  If ext2, ext3 (or patched kernel 
supporting Reiserfs EAs), did you mount with "-o user_xattr?
(The above error suggests you haven't used this option.)

> reading the man pages of setfattr (or attr) I thought that it operates
> on the attributes of  the  symbolic link itself.

No, these commands follow symbolic links.

> show:
> -----
> touch f
> ln -s f l
> setfattr -n user.filename -v ascii1 f l
> setfattr -h -n user.filename  -v ascii2 f
> getfattr -d f l
> setfattr -h -n user.filename  -v ascii3 l
> setfattr -h --no-dereference -n user.filename  -v ascii4 l
> getfattr -d f l
> 
> so, my question is : what is expected ?

attr(5) specifically notes that USER EAs are disallowed on 
symbolic links, but this is rather an issu that affects the 
use of lsetxattr(2).

Cheers,

Michael

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