Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 26 Oct 1999 21:35:07 -0400
From:      John <papalia@UDel.Edu>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Stickybit (Was: Permissions for users in general)
Message-ID:  <4.1.19991026211759.009434a0@mail.udel.edu>
In-Reply-To: <26526.940948091@axl.noc.iafrica.com>
References:  <Your message of "Tue, 26 Oct 1999 09:30:38 -0400."             <3.0.3.32.19991026093038.007274e8@slider>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
A slighty very much unix newbie question, but...

I've never fully understood what the sticky bit is supposed to do?

I pulled out the Red-covered SysAdmin book (by Evi Nemeth, etc), and they
seem to at first say that the sticky bit is an ancient relic and is ignored
by 'modern kernels'.  They then go on to say that if it's set on a
directory that it prevents you from deleting or renaming files unless
you're the owner of the directory, file, or the su.  

Trying to understand that... does that mean that pretty much the
permissions of the 'group' and 'other' have no bearing or point if the
sticky bit is set? (ie: if set to -rwxrwxrwx with the sticky bit on, does
that mean still only the owner can erase? not even a group member?)

Just another nuance to try to understand :)

Thanks in advance,
John

>> vi gave me the message: Permission denied: Modifications not
>> recoveralble if session fails.
>
>It's probably having trouble creating a recovery file, which is useful
>if your system dies while you're messing around with a file. You
>should check the permissions of your /tmp and /var/tmp/vi.recover
>directories. The default is sticky world writable, owned by
>root:wheel. You can "make it so" with these commands:
>
>	chown root:wheel /tmp /var/tmp/vi.recover
>	chmod 01777 /tmp /var/tmp/vi.recover
>
>Ciao,
>Sheldon.



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4.1.19991026211759.009434a0>