$ ll /usr/libexec/pt_chown -rws--x--x 1 root root 28418 2009-09-28 13:42 /usr/libexec/pt_chown $ ll /usr/bin/chsh -rws--x--x 1 root root 18072 2009-10-05 16:28 /usr/bin/chsh What is the purpose of making binaries like these unreadable? Originally I thought it was something to do with them being setuid, but there are counterexamples: $ ll /usr/bin/passwd -rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 25336 2009-09-14 13:14 /usr/bin/passwd Surely there is no possible secret in those binaries, since an attacker could just as easily download the binary RPMs on another machine in order to find out what is inside them. There's a genuine reason for me asking about this. When we build the libguestfs supermin appliance[1] we would like to be able to read these binaries as non-root. Rich. [1] http://libguestfs.org/README.txt section "Supermin appliance" -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones virt-df lists disk usage of guests without needing to install any software inside the virtual machine. Supports Linux and Windows. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-df/ -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
