Re: x bit for dirs: misfeature?

Shaya Potter
2001-11-19T15:08:34Z

On Mon, 2001-11-19 at 12:03, vda wrote:
> On Monday 19 November 2001 14:46, Alexander Viro wrote:
> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, vda wrote:
> > > Everytime I do 'chmod -R a+rX dir' and wonder are there
> > > any executables which I don't want to become world executable,
> > > I think "Whatta hell with this x bit meaning 'can browse'
> > > for dirs?! Who was that clever guy who invented that? Grrrr"
> > >
> > > Isn't r sufficient? Can we deprecate x for dirs?
> > > I.e. make it a mirror of r: you set r, you see x set,
> > > you clear r, you see x cleared, set/clear x = nop?
> >
> > See UNIX FAQ. Ability to read != ability to lookup.
> >
> > Trivial example: you have a directory with a bunch of subdirectories.
> > You want owners of subdirectories to see them. You don't want them
> > to _know_ about other subdirectories.
>
> Security through obscurity, that is.
>
> Do you have even a single dir on your boxes with r!=x?

I've seen this a lot with html directories for web servers.