Very strange ACL problem

[Marc Perkel <marc@perkel.com>]

Hello - I'm new to this list so if I'm in the wrong place let me know. 
But I think I've discovered a very strange ACL problem that I'd like to 
report. I'm still investigating the details of it but I believe it's a 
bug in the kernel.

First -I'm running Fedora Core 4 on a dual Athlon 64. i'm running a 
custom compiled 2.6.13 kernel compiled for 64 bit. File system is EXT3. 
SELinux is disabled.

This is going to look like an end user issue - but it's not - so please 
read the whole message.

Here is the problem. When running a PHP sctript from Apache (phpBB) I 
get this error.

Template->make_filename(): Error - file /overall_header.tpl does not exist

Looks like a permissions problem at first but after setting everything 
to 777 I still get the same error - but - if I edit the file 
/www/sfparkingtickets/phpBB2/includes/template.php with pico - make no 
change by just do a save rewriting the same file - everything works - 
that is until I reboot.

Somehow the act of rewriting the file unlocks some permissions somewhere 
and things start to work.

Also - even though permissions are 777 - if I chmod them to 777 I get 
the error. If I chown to apache - even though the file is already owned 
by apache - I get the error. But in all cases if I edit the file with 
pico and making no changes rewrite the file - it starts to work again.

I also just tried removing all acl permissions with setfacl -R -b and 
that doesn't affect it. So it might not be ACL related necessarilly.

I just tried appending a blank line to the end of the file with echo "" 
 >> template.php and like pico - it clears the error.

In summary - changing permission or owner - even though I'm setting it 
to the same thing - causes the problem every time. Writing to the file 
in any way - even if you don't change the file - clears the error. So it 
looks to me like there is some bug in the permissions logic.

-- 
Marc Perkel - marc@perkel.com

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