Mail Archives: cygwin/2002/07/14/23:18:05
[ I hope someone who understands these issues better than I do will correct
me if I'm mistaken and / or misleading Jehan... ]
Jehan,
Have you read the Cygwin documents regarding file modes / permissions and
how they relate to Windows permissions?
At 10:44 2002-07-14, Jehan wrote:
>Randall R Schulz wrote:
>>The reason is the mapping between Cygwin's Unix / POSIX permissions and
>>Windows is not reversible. Windows permissions are far more refined, so
>>it is inevitable that in at least one case (in reality, many cases),
>>there are multiple distinct Windows permissions that map to a single
>>Cygwin / Unix / POSIX file "mode."
>
>And? I don't understand the point. All that tells me is that "ls -l" may
>not show the real permissions because Windows persmissions doesn't always
>map to Unix/POSIX. That's fine with me. That would be the explanation for
>an application failing when it checks explicitly for permissions. But I
>don't think "cat" and "cp" do any permissions checking, they fully rely on
>the underlying system for that.
"Cat," "cp" and any other program linked with Cygwin relies on Cygwin to do
permission checks. When ntsec is in effect Cygwin simulates / synthesizes
POSIX-style file modes based on the Windows permissions. This is a
many-to-one mapping from distinct Windows permissions to "equivalent" POSIX
ones. There's no way around it. This is one of the places where it's not
possible for Cygwin to create a fully seamless integration with Windows.
>What I don't understand is why cygwin doesn't rely on Windows. For what I
>know of ntsec, it sets the permissions/ownership of files. It also read
>them so "ls -l" show correct permissions (as much as possible knowing that
>not all Windows permissions map to Unix).
>But once their are set, then Windows should be able to take care of
>denying/allowing access accordingly. Why would cygwin need to do more
>security checking than Windows does? Why would cygwin deny me write access
>to a file when I can do it with any other Windows application?
If the mapping from Windows permissions to POSIX-style file modes says the
file is inaccessible, Cygwin must deny the program access even if Windows
would allow it. You've asked Cygwin to do that be enabling "ntsec."
>>Cygwin will "leave it to Windows" if you turn of "ntsec" and / or "ntea."
>
>I know, it used to be that way. But then I don't see what file belong to
>who and what I am allowed to do.
The bottom line is that a POSIX-style file mode is inherently and
ineluctably an imperfect reflection of the essential Windows permissions.
You must live with the discrepancy.
> Jehan
Randall Schulz
Mountain View, CA USA
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