Re: lynx-dev rc save bug

[dickey]

> 
> 981007 Thomas Dickey wrote:  
> > a link set up as described should be from a directory 
> > that isn't world writable. 
> > afaik, there's no reliable way to determine if that directory is owned 
> > by a privileged user: even '0' for root's is not universal 
> > in the quasi-Unix clones, but I decided to neglect those: they're very 
> > rare. 
> > But, like Bela, I'm curious who owns the directory where the link is 
> > (sounds like "/" - which should be owned by root - 
> > the convention afaik is to have root own all of the nonvolatile stuff, 
> > and privileged "users" such as "bin" and "news" own facilities). 
>  
> users' directories are kept on a number of disk units, 
> whose physical names are replaced by symbolic links 
> --  /homes/purslow/  =  /homefs/u0/purslow/  -- ; 
> anything found under either must belong to the user  purslow : 
> why on earth would anyone want to write a Lynx function 
> which interpreted it in any other way? 

no - we are misunderstanding each other.  I understood your report to
say that (for example - there's details missing), at the "/", or in "/homes"
there is a symbolic link
        homes -> /homefs/u0
or in /homefs/u0
        purslow -> (something).

If "/" is world-writable (not so, but it's not owned by root, I guess)
then someone could modify the link to point elsewhere.

(If my understanding is not correct, I'd like to find out, so we can focus
on what the problem is).
  
-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
address@hidden
http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey