sticky bit

[T. William Wells]

In article <1359 at mtunb.ATT.COM> jcm at mtunb.UUCP (was-John McMillan) writes:
: In article <14750 at cisunx.UUCP> jcbst3 at unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (James C. Benz) writes:
: ...
: >I would like to know if :
: >1) this will really help speed things up
:
:       b) It is UNNECESSARY for programs which typically have another
:               incarnation ALREADY RUNNING.
:               Ex: It is usually worthless for SH because the user
:                       typically is already running that program and
:                       its TEXT is ALREADY on the SWAP disk.

However, an example of where this might be useful: if you use csh,
you might want /bin/sh sticky to speed up running shell scripts.

: >2) if there are any security problems or potential problems
:
:       A SB-program consumes SWAP SPACE for its TEXT even when it it
:       not running.  Therefore, you are that much closer to running out
:       of SWAP SPACE -- which is REPORTED as "ENOMEM" -- outta memory --
:       when it occurs.

Depends on the system. Mine will move stuff out of swap if it's not
in use and the space is needed. Read the chmod(2) manual page to see
what yours does.

: First time around, most folk seem to overdo the Sticky-Bit use.

I just did my editor, compiler, make, and ls.  That seems to be
sufficient.

---
Bill
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