Re: [PATCH] [RFC] Recursive file permissions

[Kristoffer Lundén <kristoffer lunden gmail com>]

On 12/27/05, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com> wrote:

What are the use cases for wanting to apply a folder's (or disk's)
permissions to its files but not subfolders, or vice versa?

Directories usually have - and need - the execute bit set, while files that aren't mean to be executed shouldn't. Propagating a directories execute bit to all the files inside would be a bad, or at least a confusing thing.

Actually, it is still confusing though. The execute bit means somewhat different things for directories and files, as do the write bit. And the read bit might not do what you expect... and so on. It would probably be a lot better in the end if those permissions were abstracted in a more explanatory way, although it might take a lot of hard thinking to design a good interface for this.

But I think that my choices should be clearly explained - what is it that I'm actually doing? Allowing directories to be viewed, or files to be started (or not)? Allowing files to be changed, or deleted (or not)? And for whom? A clever solution for this would be most appreciated... :)

As it is, I think separating them as this patch does is a good interim solution, that's often a problem otherwise with recursive chmod's.

-- Kristoffer

-- 
Kristoffer Lundén
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