Re: USS/OMVS chown weirdness!

Discussed many times in other forums.

chown does not set a file owner to a RACF userid, it sets it to the numeric UID corresponding to that userid -- because use of numeric UIDs and GIDs for file/directory ownership is the convention for UNIX file systems.

When you display the directory, that UID may be displayed as a RACF userid, but only because a backward lookup is being done to convert the numeric UID to a userid. If multiple userids are all assigned to UID 0, then which userid is returned for UID 0 is to some extent arbitrary (it may be consistent, but not determined by rules that are obvious). If you want positive control over and consistent display of userids for UID values, then you must assign unique numeric UID values to each RACF userid so that there is a one-to-one correspondence to make the backward lookup well-defined. As long as multiple applications that need to run under different RACF userids all insist on UID 0, that will never be possible for UID 0.

Similar considerations exist for assigning GIDs to RACF Groups. But since there are no applications that demand a specific GID, there is no excuse for not keeping these assignments unique.
Joel C Ewing

MVSGuy wrote:
When trying to do a 'chown' in USS/OMVS, the owner usually changes
back to the uid(0) superuser.

For example, let's say the superuser is "USSADMIN". I 'su' to
USSADMIN and enter "chown aopowner *". If I'm quick enough, I can
list the directory and see my change. However the next time I list
it, a couple seconds later, the owner is USSADMIN.

Does anyone know what's going on?

Regards
MVSGuy


--
Joel C. Ewing, Fort Smith, AR jREMOVEcCAPSewing@xxxxxxx

----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to listserv@xxxxxxxxxxx with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Wie die numerische Userid anzeigen?
    ... >>Wenn ich in der Cygwin-Bash uid aufrufe, bekomme ich als Userid 1000. ... >>Mache ich das in einer Shell der SFU, erhalte ich eine ganz andere uid. ... Burkhard Schultheis ...
    (microsoft.public.de.german.win2000.sonstiges)
  • Re: deleting user account: disposition of users files?
    ... The system will report them as being owned by uid "x", ... Not the userid, the uid--the number associated with the userid. ... all the old files will suddenly belong to the new ... I don't know of any system that prevents recycling uids. ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • RE: hfs ishell owner field blank
    ... Your problem is due to you not having a userid in your security database ... assigned with that UID, but that user is no longer in the security ... hfs ishell owner field blank ...
    (bit.listserv.ibm-main)
  • Re: Combo Box Filter according to user log in
    ... Have table with userid, username, password and level of access ... (security table) ... Dim uid As String ... splitting and maintaining the front-end. ...
    (microsoft.public.access.formscoding)