Re: [cobalt-users] General Chmod question

["Jim Esten" <jesten@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Not really dumb at all.. actually a fairly obscure technique for making the
file SUID (set user id) .. it sets the sticky bit so that the process is
executed under the id of the file owner, rather than the user who launched
it.  In olden days, often used by root to allow others to run programs as
root that normally wouldn't have been permitted (and you can probably
imagine the security holes associated with that!!!)

regards,

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Combe <mcombe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Cobalt <cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 11:03 AM
Subject: [cobalt-users] General Chmod question


> This may sound like a dumb question, but...
>
> On this list and in other instruction manuals for script, I have found
> instances where there are four numeric digits in the chmod command instead
> of three (chmod 4755 instead of chmod 755).  I have noticed that including
> the additional digit usually ads an "s" where an "x" usually is in the
file
> attributes.
>
> My question is what does the additional digit (the first digit) do?  I
> cannot find an answer to this in any of the Linux or Unix documentation I
> have.  They all explain what the three digits do, but not the fourth, or
> rather the first.  Any help would be much appreciated.
>
> Michael Combe
>
>
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