Dear Managers,
I received several responses, but all of them seem to have
something to do with protection. I think the protections are correct
(in fact they are the same in the test account which worked), but here
is a listing of the user's home directory (/usr/users/nlecren):
total 115
drwx------ 4 nlecren datastr 8192 Sep 28 10:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 78 root system 8192 Sep 28 10:26 ..
...Standard account stuff..
...Here's the files in question
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 294 Aug 8 1997 data.cc
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 2584 Jul 22 18:19 inter.cc
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 146 Sep 28 10:23 io.cc
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 105 Sep 28 10:23 io.h
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 3040 Sep 28 10:24 io.o
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 650 Jan 17 1995 itoa.cc
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 38 Jan 17 1995 itoa.h
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 5000 Sep 28 10:24 itoa.o
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 1590 Jul 27 14:11 makefile.post
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 2001 Jul 21 11:01 postfix.cc
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 238 Jul 21 10:22 postfix.h
-r-x------ 1 nlecren datastr 1350 Jul 22 18:39 stack.h
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 1807 Sep 28 10:23 str.h
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 4938 Sep 28 10:23 string.cc
-rw------- 1 nlecren datastr 41048 Sep 28 10:23 string.o
Note the user owns his home directory, has full privileges in
it, and he owns all the relevant files in it. There are no lock files
I can find and no processes seem to be using these files. He doesn't
own any files elsewhere except in his trashcan. Why can't "nlecren"
delete ANY of these files? Especially when other users create the
exact same files with exactly the same procedure and they have no
trouble at all? The home directories are NFS-mounted, but we tried
deleting on the NFS server itself and that failed.
Larry
Original post
-------- ----
Dear Managers,
A student of mine has a weird problem. I asked the class to
unpack a .tar.gz file I had written and use it in an assignment. The
student unpacked the file but had trouble compiling it because of
"permission denied" errors. Specifically the (GNU C++) compiler
failed while writing the *.o files. The student tried to use rm to
remove them but failed (in fact, the source files couldn't be deleted
either).
The following remedies have been attempted without success:
i) It was verified that ownership, group membership, and permissions
(600 on the source and object files) were correct. A chown and chmod
command was performed by root anyways without any apparent change.
ii) root (successfully) removed the files. The student unpacked the
.tar.gz file again, with the same lack of success.
iii) Compiles were attempted both with direct commands and with
makefiles (both DEC and GNU make).
iv) I tried the same operation from a test account I maintain which
only has general user privileges (the student's account would be in
the same group as the owner of the archive, but otherwise would be set
up in the same way). This account had no difficulty in unpacking the
archive, compiling, removing the files, unpacking again, compiling
again, and removing again.
v) I tried removing the student account and generating a fresh account
with the same user id. The home directory was deleted and a default
home directory created. The student was able to successfully unpack
and compile ONCE, but the second time the permission problems
recurred.
vi) I tried searching for files owned by this user. Nothing outside
his directory, his trashcan, and his pseudo-terminals was found.
vii) I tried generating a new account with a different username and
different userid. Same problem.
I get the feeling this is some kind of bizarre locking problem,
but I'm at a loss to find it.
System: DEC 3000/600 and 300LX, DU v4.0D with patch kit #2, GNU C++
v.2.8.1. C2 security is in use. The .tar.gz file is one I wrote and
it has been in successful use prior to this incident.
Larry
============================================================================
Larry Griffith Dept. of Computer & Info Science
larry_at_cs.wsc.ma.edu Westfield State College
(413) 572-5294 Westfield, MA 01086 USA
PGP public key available at:
http://cs.wsc.ma.edu/dcis/griffith.html
NOTE NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS!!
============================================================================
Received on Mon Sep 28 1998 - 22:58:04 NZST