Re: ext2 APPEND flag

Simon Kirby (sim@netnation.com)
Wed, 2 Sep 1998 20:34:47 -0700 (PDT)


On Wed, 2 Sep 1998, Rik van Riel wrote:

> I've just come across the fenomenon that the ext2fs APPEND
> flag can only be set by root...
>
> Now I wonder why? Why was this done and what are the security
> implications of allowing normal users to set the APPEND-only
> flag on their own files?

This would break things such as "userdel -r", as the flag must be unset
before removing such files (even as root). This would make things like
userdel unportable without a kludge for Linux...I wouldn't want this.

Also, we use "chattr +a .bash_history" on our web servers for suspicious
users -- it also wouldn't be good if they could undo this. This is just a
specific application, however.

Simon-

| Simon Kirby | Systems Administration |
| mailto:sim@netnation.com | NetNation Communications |
| http://www.netnation.com/ | Tech: (604) 684-6892 |

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