To: Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>
CC: miklos@szeredi.hu, akpm@linux-foundation.org, viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk,
       dhowells@redhat.com, hch@infradead.org, adilger@sun.com,
       mtk.manpages@gmail.com, torvalds@linux-foundation.org,
       drepper@gmail.com, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
In-reply-to: <20091008132636.GA29691@shareable.org> (message from Jamie Lokier
	on Thu, 8 Oct 2009 14:26:36 +0100)
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] vfs: new O_NODE open flag
References: <E1MvonW-0004rO-4A@pomaz-ex.szeredi.hu> <20091008132636.GA29691@shareable.org>
Message-Id: <E1Mvt87-0005Ne-K0@pomaz-ex.szeredi.hu>
From: Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:34:03 +0200
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 915
Lines: 25

On Thu, 8 Oct 2009, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> fchmodat(2) says:
> 
>        AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
>               If pathname is a symbolic link, do not dereference it:
>               instead operate on the link itself.  This flag is not
>               currently implemented.
> 
> If the flag were implemented, it would make sense for fchmod() on a
> symlink to succeed, wouldn't it?

I think allowing permission bits to be changed for symlinks would lead
to a mess.  It doesn't much make any sense anyway.

A logical implementation for fchmodat(..., AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW) would be to
return an error if the target is a symlink (instead of dereferencing
it).

Thanks,
Miklos
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