[OS X TeX] Command-line fun

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 15.01.2007 um 17:15 schrieb Bruno Voisin:

> Le 15 janv. 07 à 17:04, Peter Dyballa a écrit :
>
>> 2755 for directories might be a better choice: then automatically  
>> the new contents in such a directory would be owned by the owners  
>> of this directory. No "post-fixing" would be necessary.
>> A problem could arise from executable files (Ruby, Perl, and other  
>> scripts, for example in ConTeXt or XeTeX): they would lose this  
>> attribute.
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> Thanks for the explanations. Wouldn't the above have security  
> implications, any file put into these directories (owned by root)  
> immediately acquiring root privileges? Or did I misunderstand  
> something?

Bruno, you're planning to deliberately make the whole branch owned by  
root! Giving it "root privileges." Your doing would be more dangerous  
by some magnitudes ...

More seriously: changing bits in the inode of a file or directory  
(that's what chmod, chown, or the automatism do) is still some light  
years away from actively executing a file via sudo. Proof: when some  
mortal user invokes latex, which is owned by root, on some TeX file  
(STY, CLS, ..., DTX, XeTeX test file), owned by root, then the output  
will /not/ belong to root. The mechanism with setting for example  
2775 permissions for a directory is like adding a hook (in Emacs  
speak), an automatic side-effect that inherently invokes chown. And  
it's secure: no-one else than the owner of the directory is allowed  
to put anything inside.

And "root privileges" are not only semantically different from "owned  
by root!" Only the latter happens.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists  
elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
                     -- Bill Watterson, in his comic strip Calvin and  
Hobbes



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