Root cannot chmod a file

srarcade · 10-14-2007, 04:20 PM

I am stumped!

So I was having some issues with my dhcp ip resetting so a guy at work told me to chmod my resolv.conf a certain way and it was able to stick since nothing could modify it. Now that I want to remove that ip, i can't because the file is unable to be chmod'd, chown'd, modified, deleted or anything, even by root!

ls -l /etc/resolv.conf
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 61 2007-08-22 09:57 /etc/resolv.conf

Whats up with the '2' before root? I am suspicous of this because it I think it should be a 1. Just a hunch.

Any help here is greatly appreciated!

colucix · 10-14-2007, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by srarcade

Whats up with the '2' before root? I am suspicous of this because it I think it should be a 1. Just a hunch.

That number is the number of hard links sharing the same inode. To find which and where is the hard link, you can do

Code:

ls -i /etc/resolv.conf

to find the inode number and then do a find with the -inum test. Or do simply

Code:

find / -samefile /etc/resolv.conf

you can restrict the search first by looking inside /etc itself.

jschiwal · 10-14-2007, 05:23 PM

Look at "lsattr /etc/resolv.conf". I bet that you set the 'i' attribute. You can use the "chattr" program to clear it.

What was the command you used before?

Tinkster · 10-14-2007, 05:36 PM

Or maybe there's a rather anal set-up for SELINUX?

Cheers,
Tink

colucix · 10-15-2007, 02:02 AM

An update to my previous post. I checked on a Fedora Core 5 system and my /etc/resolv.conf has 2 hard links, too. Running the suggested command in /etc I find:

Code:

# find /etc -samefile /etc/resolv.conf -exec ls -il {} \;
64965 -rw-r--r-- 2 root root 92 Sep 12  2006 /etc/resolv.conf
64965 -rw-r--r-- 2 root root 92 Sep 12  2006 /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default/resolv.conf

that is nothing to be worried about. Regarding your original question, I agree with both the suggestions from jschiwal and tinkster. Most likely you already have the solution to this issue!

srarcade · 10-15-2007, 08:24 AM

Thanks guys for the quick response, very informative! I will have to try this when I get home later but I wanted to post my appreciation for your help.

srarcade · 10-15-2007, 08:09 PM

Just an update- was able to identify the problem with 'lsattr /etc/resolv.conf' to see the i flag was in fact set. Used 'chattr -i /etc/resolv.conf' to clear it and the file was editable once again.

Thanks so much for the help guys!