Errata for November 2002 Linux Magazine Column

• Page 40 (first page of the article): the right-hand column shows this example:

    % mkdir safe
    % chmod og-rwx safe
    % echo "Hello" > safe/secret
    % chmod a-x safe
    % ls safe
    secret
    % cat safe/secret
    cat: safe/secret: Permission denied
    % chmod u+x safe
    % cat safe/secret
    Hello
    

  Some readers will get a different result for the ls command:

    % ls safe
    ls: safe/secret: Permission denied
    

  If this happens to you, try the command /bin/ls safe instead of just ls safe. Does that give the correct output (secret)? It should, and here's why:

  Your ls command has probably been aliased to add options like -F to the plain ls command. Many ls options need to read a file's inode to get the extra information. For instance, -F and --color identify the type of file (directory, symbolic link, etc.). The file's inode isn't accessible unless you have x (execute) permission on the file's directory. So, if your ls has been aliased and needs to read the file's inode, it may give a "Permission denied" error when the lack of x permission keeps it from reading the inode.

• Page 41 (second page of the article): the right-hand column, next-to-last paragraph has a sentence starting this way:

     Then she'd use chmod 750 users.xml (or chmod u=rw,g=r,o= users. xml) ...

  The mode should be 640, and the filename shouldn't have a space in it. The sentence should start:

     Then she'd use chmod 640 users.xml (or chmod u=rw,g=r,o= users.xml)

• Page 42 (third page of the article), in the sidebar Spreading the News: The second paragraph ends with an extra closing parenthesis character.
• Page 42 (third page of the article), the final paragraph says the next month's column (December, 2002) would be on Mozilla. That column actually ran in January, 2003.

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Last change: 30 April 2003