Re: Proposal: restrict link(2)

Harald Koenig (koenig@tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de)
Sat, 14 Dec 1996 21:57:41 +0100 (MET)

> > why are you all advovating for a feature where noone could mention
> > any real use so far ?
>
> As I see it, it's _you_ who are advocating a new feature. Restricting the
> link system call would not change any rule, it would _add_ a new rule to
> how files are handled in Linux. Adding this new rule would complicate the
> file handling semantics in Linux. Furthermore, I do not think this new
> rule would fit in very well with the Unix file system astractions.

still don't see that this would be a "new rule" or new feature.
IMHO it's a definition for a (yet) unspecified condition/operation.

I'm always asking *why* (for which reason, or maybe better which purpose)
something is done/allowed/not allowed/implemented/...

for the question "why is a user allowed to create hard like to files of other users"
I haven't found any positive answer yet (please don't tell me
"that's UNIX fs semantics" again;)

and I found/read no answer so far what we'd break if we would change
the behaviour of link(). I still think that it *absolute* no
real application will be affected...

Eric Troan wrote:

: I couldn't find a POSIX verdict in ISO 9945-1. All it says is EPERM is
: returned it the user calling link() doesn't have "appropriate privileges"
: and that "appropriate privileges" are implementation defined. That doesn't
: seem to be much help.

so at least for my understanding in this saying it would be perfect to say
that Linux doesn't allow to create hard linkes to files not owend and
thus return EPERM in this case because the user doesn't have "appropriate privileges"
(read: doesn't have ownership of the original file in this case).

Harald

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