Re: ghostscript fails on pdf generation

[David Wright]

On Sun 12 Feb 2017 at 21:03:01 (+0000), Wols Lists wrote:
> On 12/02/17 19:59, David Wright wrote:
> > In the case cited from June, the OP was using an odd system (eg it
> > used # as a *user* prompt) whose tar couldn't create symlinks when
> > it unpacked an archive (permissions messages); they had to be
> > created manually.
> 
> I don't know when it started happening - maybe a year ago? - but I
> suddenly found I couldn't symlink files. And I couldn't find anything
> about it on the net, but as far as I have been able to make out ...
> 
> You need "rw" permissions on somebody else's files if you want to create
> a hard link.
> 
> It seems daft to me that you need "w" permissions, and I haven't
> experimented deeply with it, but if I have access to a file, why
> shouldn't I be able to create a link to it?

Because it's a security risk. Geriatric unixers might wonder why their
suid scripts no longer work: similar reasons.

https://lwn.net/Articles/502621/

> I don't know how tar unpacking works particularly, but if it unpacks a
> file, gives away ownership, and then tries to link to it, that could be
> why that problem happened.

One is always at the mercy of what is reported, but the OP was able to
create all the correct symlinks themselves as the same user. Suspicion
fell on tar because of entries in the change log. One can't help
wondering about the admin of a system that sets # as the user prompt.

Cheers,
David.