Re: ls, chmod options to display or set ACLs?

[Paul Eggert]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

> On MacOS X, HP-UX, Solaris, the /bin/chmod program can set ACLs. [1]
> On MacOX X, IRIX, the /bin/ls program has an option to display the contents of
> ACLs. [2]

Solaris 'ls' can also display ACLs; it's the -v and -V options.
Please see <http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-5165/ls-1>.

> I'm proposing to add an option to coreutils 'ls' to show the contents of ACLs,
> and to coreutils 'chmod' to set or remove ACLs.

I like this idea.

> I would propose to make it platform independent, so that it can be documented
> in a simple way, and so that scripts relying on GNU chmod could be written
> platform-independently.

I also like this idea.

My personal preference is for the new Solaris-style ACL syntax for ls
and chmod; it's Sun's 2nd-generation design and is fairly well
thought-out.  The downside is that for backward-compatibility reasons
Sun supports different syntaxes for "old"-style (POSIX draft) and
"new"-style (NFSv4) ACLs, and this is confusing.

If it helps, for a brief real-worldish summary of the situation from
the user's point of view there's this recent blog entry:
<http://cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=939>.