On Friday 28 March 2008 17:11, Joakim Tjernlund wrote: > > Well, GNU cp also copies TO dest symlink's target too, > > which is incredibly careless. Hell knows where that symlink points - > > /etc/passwd? /dev/sda? Cool, eh? > > Very :) But then again perhaps this is the right thing to do. Why > follow the symlink in one direction but not the other?
In my view usability and security should trump "abstract correctness" and "symmetry" considerations. How can root use safely copy a file to user-owned directory? Obviously, "cp somefile /home/user/somefile" What will happen if user created malicious symlink /home/user/somefile -> /dev/sda? Should cp STILL write to symlink's target despite it being dangerous? > > Instead of wanting cp to be a mix of copy and cat, why don't you use > > cat when you want to say "please open and read from this file/device/pipe"? > > That would be unambiguous. (Same holds for writing TO things - use >file). > > maybe, but then cp should be fixed to not copy the contents of a > symlink? If you ask me, yes, I'd prefer "cp" to copy files in the sense "create the same destination file/link/device/fifo". We already have cat/dd/etc for reading (as opposed to "copying"). But that would diverge from POSIX too much... > What about cp myfile /dev/mtdblock1? Currently cp copies the contents of > myfile to the flash. I didn't like it, but decided to make it work - there are people which are using this (mis)feature, and POSIX says it should work that way. -- vda _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/busybox
