Re: The "rm" command and non root users

[philip . morales]

Sorry but I just can't help replying to this one, but how can you say that you're a very competent UNIX and PC System ADMIN when you were lazy enough to check out simple things like the sticky bit. I doubt you even knew about that sticky bit and blamed it on Red Hat.

His reply to you was just appropriate, for someone who brags he knows sh*t.

Rend, Jon (Jon) % wrote:

Lets drop it ALL, it's getting boring.

My mistake, was being lazy and of course forgetting about the Sticky Bit
impact.
Big Bobs, well I think he knows his mistake.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert P. J. Day [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 12:34 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: Re: The "rm" command and non root users



you know, before everyone starts psychoanalyzing my interpersonal
skills, a small observation on what really griped my wagger about the
original post:

On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Rend, Jon (Jon) % wrote:

I am new to RED-HAT Linux but I was amazed at this behavior and can't find
anything on it.

this is well documented in a number of places, but that's not the issue here.

I created some dummy files as/owned by root on my WS with only "r"
permission bit set for group and world. Then I logged into the same box as

a

dumb test user with no privileges and used "rm" to remove the file and god
damn it I was given the option to remove the "write protected file"

^^^^^^^^^

i see no compelling reason for vulgarity in a simple post -- that was social faux pas number one.

How do you turn this off, do I have to use the non GNU "rm". Anyone help

???

and *this* suggests that something is somehow misconfigured when, in fact,
the command is doing exactly what it's supposed to. but wait ... there's more.

as most of you know, the "sticky bit" on directories is used to *prevent*
exactly this kind of behavior:

$ ls -ld /tmp
drwxrwxrwt

this means that, while anyone can *create* a file in /tmp, only root or the owner can remove it.

the fact that the original poster could create a file as root, and remove
it as a "dumb test user" means he must have either modified an existing
directory and removed its sticky bit, or created a new directory with
perms 777. in short, what he is describing could *not* have happened
on a standard red hat install. i just had one of my students do a

# find / -type d -perm 777

and it found only one match -- a hidden directory under /tmp. therefore,
i am concluding that the original poster either "chmod"ed an existing
directory to remove its sticky bit, or created a new directory with notoriously dangerous perms of 777 -- neither of which he admitted to
in his posting.

quite simply, i'm convinced that what he is describing could not have
happened on a standard RH install without some help from him. if i'm
wrong, then mea culpa.

we now return you to your regular frothing at the mouth.

rday

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