topic Re: why diff in permissions (SLE vs RHEL) in Operating System - Linux

why diff in permissions (SLE vs RHEL)

Maaz — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:25:32 GMT

in SLE(SUSE Linux Enterprise), all of the .ko files(/lib/modules/kernel-version/kernel/drivers/net)
have -rw-r--r-- permissions. while in rhel, all of the .ko files also have execute permission. i.e -rwxr--r--

from SLE(10 SP 1):
# cd /lib/./.././net/e1000/
# ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 187976 May 18 2007 e1000.ko

from RHEL(AS 4 update 5):
# cd /lib/./.././net/e1000/
# ls -l
-rwx-r--r-- 1 root root 140964 Apr 21 2007 e1000.ko

i.e in short under SLE root user doesnt have execute permission on .ko(module)files, while under rhel root does have execute permission on all of the .ko file.

why is the difference ? which one is appropriate ? or which one is un-necessary ?

Regards
Maaz

Re: why diff in permissions (SLE vs RHEL)

Yogeeraj_1 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:34:33 GMT

hi Maaz,

First of all, you should always compare like with like. SLE and RHEL are different flavours of linux operating systems and there are some resources that are implemented differently.

>why is the difference ? which one is appropriate ? or which one is un-necessary ?

does not really apply.

On our RHEL systems, it is similar to yours:
[root@srv1 net]# ll e1000
total 228
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 224304 Sep 20 2005 e1000.ko
[root@srv1 net]#

i.e. -rwx-r--r-- (or 744)

As mentioned previously, it is recommended not to tweak these properties.

kind regards
yogeeraj

Re: why diff in permissions (SLE vs RHEL)

Heironimus — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:39:33 GMT

Kernel modules are not "executed", so it doesn't matter if that permission bit is set or not. The difference is probably just a packaging or standards decision. There is no reason to change any of them.