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Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 02:03:09 +1100
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199602271503.CAA03513@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: msmith@comtch.iea.com, nlawson@kdat.csc.calpoly.edu
Subject: Re: Suspicious symlinks in /tmp
Cc: security@freebsd.org
Sender: owner-security@freebsd.org
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>However, the bug that I have seen for quite a while and complained about is
>that a symlink is owned by the owner of the file it points to, not by the
>creator of the symlink.  That is a bad idea and I really can't see the logic
>behind doing that.

>Could someone explain this behavior?

The symlink is owned by the owner of its parent directory.

I think this is to conform to future POSIX standards.  Many other things
involving symlinks changed in 4.4lite.  See `man 7 symlink'.

Bruce