Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:44:05 +0200 From: Jonathan McKeown <jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: mv, cp, and sgid on directories (was: cp -p) Message-ID: <200802091244.05538.jonathan%2Bfreebsd-questions@hst.org.za>
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I think you may be getting too deep into the detail. Think of the bigger picture: when I move a file, I don't expect that to change its ownership or permissions - it would surprise me if it did; when I make a copy of a file, I expect to own the copy - after all, what use is a private copy I can't do anything with? FreeBSD generally tries hard not to behave in a surprising way. The bit that still worries me in this discussion is the sgid bit (pun not intended, but I'm not going to delete it now!): as I understand it, creating a file has different behaviour on SYSV-derived systems and Berkeley-derived systems. SYSV creates files group-owned by the creator's primary group. BSD creates files which inherit the group-ownership of the directory they are created in. SYSV behaviour can be changed to BSD behaviour per-directory, by using the sgid bit on the directory. BSD behaviour can't be changed and the sgid bit on a directory is ignored. Again, could someone confirm whether I'm talking nonsense here? Jonathan
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