Talk:Sticky bit

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A few things to cover before de-stubbing:

  • dates for "historically"
  • specific OS interpretations of the bit
  • examples of setting it (chmod calls)
  • wikilinks
    • there must be a page describing the traditional UNIX permission octets
    • 'see also' -- ACLs?
  • No specific mention of Linux and what it might do on that
  • more precise categorisation (I have to admit I am not sure what appropriate categories may exist) -- Jon Dowland 15:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Error?

States the sticky bit can only be set by superuser root, however I seem to be able to apply it as a a normal user.

[edit] Version Difference or Minor Error?

States "The Linux kernel ignores the sticky bit on files." This is a little confusing. Linux does ignore the sticky bit on files in the "traditional" sense; however, if root places a sticky bit on a file, and if "all others" have rwx; all others can modify the file, but on my Red Hat ES4; users can't delete the file. Example:

[randy@larson test]$ ll
total 0
-rwxrwxrwt  1 root root 0 Feb  7 11:01 some-file.txt
[randy@larson test]$ rm some-file.txt 
rm: cannot remove `some-file.txt': Permission denied

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Randylarson (talk • contribs) 18:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I tidied up your example so it was formatted correctly -- Jon Dowland (talk) 12:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
What are the permissions on the containing directory? You may not have the right to alter that (which would prevent you removing files):
jon@ANKH:~$ ls -l /tmp/{foo,bar}
-rwxrwxrwt 1 root root 0 2008-02-19 12:55 /tmp/bar
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-02-19 12:55 /tmp/foo
jon@ANKH:~$ rm /tmp/foo
rm: cannot remove `/tmp/foo': Operation not permitted
jon@ANKH:~$ rm /tmp/foo
rm: cannot remove `/tmp/bar': Operation not permitted
-- Jon Dowland (talk) 12:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Different sticky bits.

There seems to be at least two types if "sticky bit." For reference, see this page: http://www.gnulamp.com/stickybit.html It would appear that we need to have two different "sticky bit" pages with some disambiguation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.25.240.225 (talk) 16:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)