On Tue, 2009-05-12 at 17:50 -0500, Robert Nichols wrote: > nate wrote: > > Scott Silva wrote: > > > >> But if you only have read access to the original file, can you overwrite it? > > > > If you have write access to the directory yes you should be able > > to, if you only have read access to the directory I would expect > > not. > > Technically, that's not overwriting. That's removing the original and > replacing it with another file with the same name. That difference > would be significant if there where other hard links to the original > file. Yes. When moving the new file to the old, you are really doing an unlink and link sequence. With write permission in the directory, this is valid. You are controlled by the directory's user/group and permissions, not the target file's. -- Bill