/usr/share/man

[Tim O'Connell]

Hi,

We have 2 HP servers running HPux 11.11. There are directories on both like /usr/share/man/cat1.Z, /usr/share/man/cat2.Z. On one server the permissions are OK - just READ for User, Group & World. On the other server they have RW for the three groups. The auditors run a check for worls writeable files & I need to know if it is OK to at least remove World Write from these files. Are they just man pages?

Thanks,

Tim

[Peter Godron · Accepted solution]

Tim,
you can change the permissions to read, but what is the problem with these files are writeable. They are not executable, but are used for reference, as is all the other stuff in MANPATH.

[Tim O'Connell]

Thanks, Peter

There is no problem really other than the auditors run a piece of software on the server to check security etc. & it returns a list of 2000 files which are world writeable. I know it isn't really any security risk. Just wanted the list to look better this year - purely appearance. Once they are just man pages, I will change them.

Thanks for the reply. Will assign points.

Tim

[Dennis Handly]

The purpose of the cat* directories it to have a cache of formatted man pages. If you want to save space, you could remove those cat* directores and only keep the man*.Z ones.

Note: There may be some applications that only provide man pages in the cat* directories so make sure there is another copy in man*.Z. Note the same thing occurs for man* and man*.Z, the original is generally man*.Z. See man(1).

[Tim O'Connell]

Thanks, Dennis

10 points for that

[Dennis Handly]

I didn't see any points for me?