Unable to change the file attribute
Posted by tuxican, 09-14-2007, 12:09 PM Hi all, I am not able to change the attribute of a file using the command chattr. Please see the output below. root@server [~]# lsattr /etc/exim.conf ----ia------- /etc/exim.conf root@server [~]# chattr -ai /etc/exim.conf root@server [~]# lsattr /etc/exim.conf ----ia------- /etc/exim.conf In fact, I can change the attributes for all the other files. I noticed that attribute of /etc is I root@server [~]# lsattr -d /etc ----------I-- /etc Any suggestions? Regards Tuxican
Posted by peete, 09-15-2007, 03:54 PM I wasn't aware of an l (was that a lower case L (as oppose to upper case i) ?) flag for ext2 attributes. What's your distro, and are you using anything like LIDS or grsec? I have a feeling they implement their own flags (in which case you may not be able to remove them with chattr). Or it could be that the l attribute on the directory is preventing you from modifying attributes of files inside the directory. What happens if you chattr -l /etc, then chattr -ai /etc/exim.conf Last edited by peete; 09-15-2007 at 03:55 PM. Reason: typo
Posted by david510, 09-16-2007, 03:17 AM run these commands and see if it works. chattr -i /etc/exim.conf chattr -a /etc/exim.conf
Posted by tuxican, 09-16-2007, 03:33 AM Its a vps server. Distro is CentOS 4.5 with 2.6.9-023stab033.9-enterprise kernel. I am not using LIDS and grsec. The attribute of /etc is uppercase i. The attribute I cannot be reset using chattr command.