Re: cp info/man page: cp -p add: 'often must be root to preserve owner'

[Paul Jarc]

"Eli Zaretskii" <address@hidden> wrote:
> From: Dan Jacobson <address@hidden>
>> The cp info/man page or its footnote needs to add a note saying that the
>> owner etc. won't be preserved if you're not root on many systems,
>
> Really?  What exactly did you type at the shell's prompt to invoke
> `cp', and which attributes were not preserved?  And on what OS was
> that?

Ownership won't be preserved if you're not root because most systems
don't allow file giveaways.  Likewise, group ownership won't be
preserved if the group is not your primary group or one of your
supplementary groups.  This isn't specific to cp; that's probably why
is isn't in cp's documentation.


paul