chown

[Wilco de Vries]

Hi,

as a new user to linux, but well-know with UNIX-systems, I found it
rather strange to see what happens whenever I use the chown command.

I (userone) create a file in /tmp and want to make usertwo owner of it:
userone and usertwo both are normal users of the system.

> id
uid=250(userone) gid=1002(mnp) groups=1002(mnp)
> id usertwo
uid=5003(usertwo) gid=2003(other) groups=2003(other)
> cd /tmp
> touch aa
> ls -l
-rw-r--r--    1 usertwo  other           0 May 26 15:25 /tmp/bb
-rw-r--r--    1 userone  mnp             0 May 26 15:28 /tmp/aa
> chown usertwo aa
chown: changing ownership of `aa': Operation not permitted
> ls -l
-rw-r--r--    1 usertwo  other           0 May 26 15:25 /tmp/bb
-rw-r--r--    1 userone  mnp             0 May 26 15:28 /tmp/aa
> chmod 777 aa
> ls -l
-rw-r--r--    1 usertwo  other           0 May 26 15:25 /tmp/bb
-rwxrwxrwx    1 userone  mnp             0 May 26 15:28 /tmp/aa
> chown usertwo aa
chown: changing ownership of `aa': Operation not permitted
> chgrp other aa
> ls -l
-rw-r--r--    1 usertwo  other           0 May 26 15:25 /tmp/bb
-rwxrwxrwx    1 userone  other           0 May 26 15:28 /tmp/aa
> chown usertwo aa
chown: changing ownership of `aa': Operation not permitted
> ls -l
-rw-r--r--    1 usertwo  other           0 May 26 15:25 /tmp/bb
-rwxrwxrwx    1 userone  other           0 May 26 15:28 /tmp/aa
> chown 5003 aa
chown: changing ownership of `aa': Operation not permitted
> ls -l
-rw-r--r--    1 usertwo  other           0 May 26 15:25 /tmp/bb
-rwxrwxrwx    1 userone  other           0 May 26 15:28 /tmp/aa


Is this normal functionallity or is something wrong on our system?

Regards,

Wilco de Vries.



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