GNU bug report logs - #22511
chown: add "--preserve-setuid" option

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: William Di Luigi <williamdiluigi <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: [request] Add "--preserve-setuid" to the chown command
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 03:33:29 +0100

Hi,
if I understand it correctly, chown clears the setuid bit for security
reasons (since, when changing the owner or group for a file, you could
potentially be allowing *new people* to run that file as root).

While this is good for security, sometimes you want to be able to
preserve the setuid bit. For example, when packaging software
(https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1600551)

What do you think about adding a "--preserve-setuid" optional flag?

Regards,
William

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