Philippe Cloutier wrote:
Please clarify why this was closed.
It was closed primarily because no specific wording fix was proposed.
I looked at the bug report again, and don't agree that the old wording was wrong
or even misleading. It's merely a summary table, there's a lot of explanatory
text before the table, and we shouldn't clutter the table with another copy of
the explanation. That being said, the explanatory text can be improved and the
summary table can be abbreviated even further by removing the phrase "on
execution" which seems to be the primary point of the original bug report. I
installed the attached.
From 8ea92f2a1d76b224624e9770444de49c58c3cd33 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2018 10:45:35 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] doc: tidy up setuid commentary
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
* doc/perm.texi (Mode Structure): Improve wording.
(Numeric Modes): Don’t say “on execution” (Bug#9594).
---
doc/perm.texi | 30 ++++++++++++++----------------
1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/perm.texi b/doc/perm.texi
index 77ec1a59c..78f0f0e4a 100644
--- a/doc/perm.texi
+++ b/doc/perm.texi
@@ -70,38 +70,36 @@ In addition to the three sets of three permissions listed
above, the
file mode bits have three special components, which affect only
executable files (programs) and, on most systems, directories:
-@enumerate
-@item
+@table @asis
+@item The @dfn{set-user-ID bit} (@dfn{setuid bit}).
@cindex set-user-ID
@cindex setuid
-Set the process's effective user ID to that of the file upon execution
-(called the @dfn{set-user-ID bit}, or sometimes the @dfn{setuid bit}).
+On execution, set the process's effective user ID to that of the file.
For directories on a few systems, give files created in the directory
the same owner as the directory, no matter who creates them, and set
the set-user-ID bit of newly-created subdirectories.
-@item
+
+@item The @dfn{set-group-ID bit} (@dfn{setgid bit}).
@cindex set-group-ID
@cindex setgid
-Set the process's effective group ID to that of the file upon execution
-(called the @dfn{set-group-ID bit}, or sometimes the @dfn{setgid bit}).
+On execution, set the process's effective group ID to that of the file.
For directories on most systems, give files created in the directory
the same group as the directory, no matter what group the user who
creates them is in, and set the set-group-ID bit of newly-created
subdirectories.
-@item
+
+@item The @dfn{restricted deletion flag} or @dfn{sticky bit}.
@cindex sticky
@cindex swap space, saving text image in
@cindex text image, saving in swap space
@cindex restricted deletion flag
Prevent unprivileged users from removing or renaming a file in a directory
-unless they own the file or the directory; this is called the
-@dfn{restricted deletion flag} for the directory, and is commonly
+unless they own the file or the directory; this is commonly
found on world-writable directories like @file{/tmp}.
-
For regular files on some older systems, save the program's text image on the
-swap device so it will load more quickly when run; this is called the
-@dfn{sticky bit}.
-@end enumerate
+swap device so it will load more quickly when run, so that the image
+is ``sticky''.
+@end table
In addition to the file mode bits listed above, there may be file attributes
specific to the file system, e.g., access control lists (ACLs), whether a
@@ -511,8 +509,8 @@ Value in Corresponding
Mode Mode Bit
Special mode bits:
-4000 Set user ID on execution
-2000 Set group ID on execution
+4000 Set user ID
+2000 Set group ID
1000 Restricted deletion flag or sticky bit
The file's owner:
--
2.17.1
