Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 16:50:29 -0700 From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: Andrew.Tridgell@anu.edu.au Cc: Guido.vanRooij@nl.cis.philips.com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: fix for symlinks in /tmp (fwd) FYI Message-ID: <326817C5.61133CF4@whistle.com> References: <96Oct19.085926%2B1000est.65030-172%2B211@arvidsjaur.anu.edu.au>
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Andrew Tridgell wrote: > > > I wonder if anyone can comment on this... > > My initial reaction is that it's breaking the expected behaviour > > or the system to do this.... > > yep, but we need to think of cases where "normal" use of symlinks will > break. Can you think of any? "hey john, I set a symlink in /tmp pointing to all that stuff you need" or "hey, you asked me to check the compile of that stuff you left in /tmp for me but it doesn't work for me!" (he set one .h files as a symlink to a bunch of stuff elsewhere) "hey you said that if I used your 'lndir'd sources you left in /tmp for me, I'd see the error messages but it totally barfs for me! " It's probably not THAT common, but it MIGHT cause someone to lose hours in a very frustrating way.. > > > If I see a symlink I expect it to be followed.. > > yes, and if you created the symlink, or if the symlink is not in a > directory with the t bit set (such as /tmp) then it will be. > > It just stops other people saying "if I create a symlink in /tmp then > I expect that other guy to follow it (he he he)". I still don't see the danger in that though.... Is this something that surprising? tmpfile creation should not follow a symlink anyhow.. > > I think that the change actually fits in well with the existing t bit > behaviour. The t bit already modifies how permissions work in /tmp, > I'm just extending this slightly because following a link in a world > writeable directory is just as dangerous as deleting a file. > > > I just don't like it? > > Have another coffee then think of a better reason :-) > > It may be that my fix breaks something important. I just haven't > thought of what that is yet .... > > Cheers, Andrew
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