mv command and ACLs

murraymn · 04-26-2011, 02:02 PM

I'd like to know if the mv command is supposed to apply the default acl of the destination directory to the moved file?

I'm on RHEL5, and when moving a file with no acl, to a directory with a default acl, the acl is not being applied.

Note: cp does apply the acl as expected.

Thx,
Mike

MTK358 · 04-26-2011, 02:52 PM

What's an "acl"? The ownership and permisions?

sibe · 04-26-2011, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTK358

What's an "acl"? The ownership and permisions?

Access List. It's an extended attribute on a dir/file that provides specific permissions to certain users, regardless of the ordinary permission & ownership.

AFAIK, on RHEL5 mv does not change the original permission setting when it moves files to a an acl'ed dir.

MTK358 · 04-26-2011, 04:28 PM

From the cp man page:

Code:

       --preserve[=ATTR_LIST]
              preserve the specified attributes (default: mode,ownership,time‐
              stamps),  if  possible  additional  attributes:  context, links,
              xattr, all

If ACLs are stored in xattr's, then "cp --preserve=xattr" should work.

mv's man page doesn't say anything about it, I guess that it keeps everything.

nomb · 04-27-2011, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTK358

From the cp man page:

Code:

       --preserve[=ATTR_LIST]
              preserve the specified attributes (default: mode,ownership,time‐
              stamps),  if  possible  additional  attributes:  context, links,
              xattr, all

If ACLs are stored in xattr's, then "cp --preserve=xattr" should work.

mv's man page doesn't say anything about it, I guess that it keeps everything.

That would preserve the permissions of the original file.

However he is asking if mv can apply the new permissions of the folder you are moving the file into.

MTK358 · 04-27-2011, 10:14 AM

So he wants the copy of the file to have the same ACL as the destination folder?

nomb · 04-27-2011, 10:24 AM

Not sure about other filesystems but it seems like they are getting automatic inheritance of ACLs into ext4.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/2/23/196

murraymn · 05-03-2011, 09:31 AM

My apologies...after the "what's an acl?" response I kinda moved on.

The filesystem was ext3.

I found/knew that cp does in fact apply the destination directory default acl, but mv apparently does not.
So yes I was wanting to know if mv can apply the new permissions of the folder you are moving the file into.

It appears the answer is no, for now.

Thanks everyone!