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Date:      Sun, 14 Mar 1999 01:53:43 -0600 (CST)
From:      David Scheidt <dscheidt@enteract.com>
To:        The Unicorn <unicorn@blackhats.org>
Cc:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ACLs
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903140137580.15373-100000@nathan.enteract.com>
In-Reply-To: <19990314081933.A438@unicorn.quux.org>

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On Sun, 14 Mar 1999, The Unicorn wrote:

:On Sat, Mar 13, 1999 at 07:26:52PM -0500, Robert Watson wrote:
:> On Sat, 13 Mar 1999, Thomas Valentino Crimi wrote:
:> BTW, I'd really like to get rid of hard links -- they allow users to
:> retain copies of setuid files after the owner thinks they are deleted.
:
:They cause inconsistent semantics, but they are recorded in the inode as
:the number of links to the file the inode holds information on. Therefor
:any admin who is worth the money  they receive for doing their task will
:know that if the  number of links to a file is  greater than one another
:hard  link  must  exist.  Searching  the  filesystem  for  another  name
:referring the same inode is then not a really hard thing to do...
:

You have to remeber to check, though.  I don't look at the link count every
time before I a rm a file.  There are all sorts of people admining boxes who 
haven't sense to check for this.  I suspect there are lots of otherwise 
competent people who don't even know to look for this.  Removing the problem
might be a better solution than trying to educate the world about it. 

:As far as  I am aware there  are backup utilities that  DO preserve hard
:links (if I am not mistaken GNU tar does).

GNU tar does this, at least in modern versions.  It may not have since the 
begining of time.  Dump preserves this as well.  

:
:Have a look at ls -l `which vi  view ex` and think again about what hard
:links contribute (then again  similar functionality might be constructed
:using soft-links; but  they are much harder to  administrate (read: keep
:under control))

Programs which do different things depending on the name they are invoked 
under is not a feature.

:Just my 0.02 euro.

David Scheidt



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