Subject: Re: bug#55487: chmod to +w is not defaulting to ALL target in Debian 11.3

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 May 2022 14:38:33 -0700

On 5/17/22 10:51, Corey H wrote:
> sudo chmod +w /etc/whatever/whatever.conf #doesn't work
> sudo chmod a+w /etc/whatever/whatever.conf #does work

It sounds like you're misunderstanding what "chmod +w" means. It doesn't 
mean "turn on all the w bits". It means "turn on the w bits enabled by 
the current umask". So, for example, this is expected behavior:

$ umask
0022
$ touch foo
$ ls -l foo
-rw-r--r--. 1 eggert eggert 0 May 17 14:37 foo
$ chmod +w foo
$ ls -l foo
-rw-r--r--. 1 eggert eggert 0 May 17 14:37 foo
$ umask 0
$ chmod +w foo
$ ls -l foo
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 eggert eggert 0 May 17 14:37 foo