Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Tim X]

Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> writes:

> Peter Dyballa wrote:
>> You should try:
>>
>>      sudo chown -R iainb:iainb ~iainb
>>
>> log off and in again.
>
> are you sure that's such a wise idea? changing ownership of literally
> *everything* in someone's home dir?

Not only is it a bad idea, it is addressing the symptom and not the
cause. If emacs is creating these files as the OP suggested and those
files are being created as root rather than as the user he is running
as, I suspect he has a much bigger problem. Also, if the problem is due
to some stuff up in his environment config, using the ~username may have
unexpected results.

Things I would look at include -

1. verify his user account settings e.g. uid, gid, home directory, umask
etc. The 'id' command may be available (I don't use Mac and am not that
familiar with BSD or systems derived from it). 

2. Check to see who owns his home directory and what bits are set. For
example, if the setuid bit is set on his home dir and for some reason it
is owned by root, then files created in that directory will be created
as root. Note that this could be occuring at a higher level e.g. the
directory /home is usually owned by root. If its setuid was set, then
home directories created within that directory may also be owned by root
etc. 

3. run a command like 'touch mytest' in a terminal and see if that is
owned by root etc. If it is, then you know the problem is not emacs, but
with his environment. 

4. Check the emacs binary itself. Maybe it has had setuid bit set or
something similar. 

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au