chown (was: at files and permissions)

[Root Boy Jim]

? From: Doug Gwyn <gwyn at smoke.brl.mil>

? So now the issue becomes:  Is the BSD disk quota system bogus?

Good question. We don't use it here.

? The
? second problem can be dealt with administratively, with periodic
? use of "du|sort -rn" to find where the problems are.

Actually, you want the `quot' utility.

? Most of my use of "su" on our BSD-based systems is simply to chown
? files.  That is indicative of a serious deficiency in normal user
? services on these systems.  I would install a set-UID 0 "chown"
? (with appropriate checks) except for the hassle I'd get from the
? system admins around here.

What checks would you need (besides mode &= ~07000)?

How about a purely advisory quota system. The kernel would syslog
any quota violations, which can be mailed to a Root Boy. Chown could
optionally run suid, and modify (modeify?) the mode if so. Seems like
this would give you the best of both worlds.

	Root Boy Jim
	Have GNU, Will Travel.