Folders must be made executable?

[Kent Frazier]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:55:35 -0500, David Miller <justdave at bugzilla.org> wrote:
> Kent Frazier wrote:
> > I recently reinstalled Ubuntu from the Hoary Array 2 disc and almost
> > everything worked fine.  I ran into a rather strange issue with some
> > of the subdirectories in my home directory.  When I would open them in
> > nautilus, I could see the contents, but the application specific icons
> > were replaced with the generic gnome foot and I couldn't do anything
> > to any of the files, including open them.  When I try to list them
> > from the command line with ls (as normal user) it tells me permission
> > is denied.  By experimenting, I found I could make them work properly
> > by setting the executable bit, which was off for those that were
> > misbehaving.
> >
> > Is this buggy behavior, or is this the way this is supposed to work?
> > I had never run across this before, but that may have just been a
> > coincidence.
> 
> That's the way it's supposed to work.  On a directory, the executable
> bit actually means "permission to enter this directory".  If it's
> readable, but not executable, then you can see what files are in it, but
> you can't enter the directory, and hence can't open the files in it.
> 
> Conversely, it's possible to make a "blind" directory by setting it as
> executable, but not readable.  Now you can enter the directory, but you
> can't see what's in it.  But if you happen to know one of the filenames,
> you can get to it.  This is commonly used on ftp servers to provide a
> temporary place for people to put files to trade with other folks...
> make it readable and writable, but not executable.  They give the
> filename to the person they want to send it to, and they can get it.
> But you have no way to tell it's there if you didn't already know the
> filename.
> 
> --
> Dave Miller                                   http://www.justdave.net/
> System Administrator, Mozilla Foundation       http://www.mozilla.org/
> Project Leader, Bugzilla Bug Tracking System  http://www.bugzilla.org/

OK, thanks.  I just didn't realize that.  Now I am not sure how the
executable bit got removed, but I know how to deal with this in the
future, and I know that its functioning properly.

Much appreciated.

Kent