File attributes puzzle

[Anne Wilson]

I have a small text file that I want to ensure cannot be accidentally deleted, 
so I ran 

chattr -i /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt

(as root, of course).  Running lsattr against the same file produced 

-------------e- /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt

'i' doesn't show in ls -l filename, either.  I haven't come across
'e' before.  
What is it, and is my file immutable or not?

Anne
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[Michal Hlavinka]

On Thursday, March 31, 2011 09:27:00 Anne Wilson wrote:
>  I have a small text file that I want to ensure cannot be accidentally
> deleted, 
>  so I ran 
>  
>  chattr -i /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt 
If you want to add an attribute you have to use +<attribute> , because -i means
"remove". 
See man chattr
so you need: chattr +i /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt

>  (as root, of course).  Running lsattr against the same file produced
>
>  
>  -------------e- /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt
>  
>  'i' doesn't show in ls -l filename, either.  I haven't come across
> 'e' before.  
>  What is it, and is my file immutable or not? 
What is it: man chattr: The 'e' attribute indicates that the file is using 
extents for mapping the blocks on disk.  It may not be removed using chattr(1).

Is your file immutable: no, it isn't

Michal

[Giuliano Colla]

Anne Wilson ha scritto:
>  I have a small text file that I want to ensure cannot be accidentally
> deleted, 
>  so I ran 
>
>  chattr -i /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt
>
>  (as root, of course).  Running lsattr against the same file produced 
>
>  -------------e- /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt
>
>  'i' doesn't show in ls -l filename, either.  I haven't come across
> 'e' before.  
>  What is it, and is my file immutable or not?
>
>  Anne
>    
>     
1) You must be superuser (i.e. login as root, or use /su/) in order to 
have chattr set the /i /attribute/.
2) -i /*removes* the i attribute, doesn't set it. From chattr man page, 
the rule is: - sign removes, + sign adds = sign makes it the only 
attribute. You should type:

chatttr +i /home/anne/etc..

then with lsattr you'll see something like:
----i-------- file.txt

Regards,

Giuliano

[Anne Wilson]

On Thursday 31 March 2011 10:26:10 Giuliano Colla wrote:
>  Anne Wilson ha scritto:
>  > I have a small text file that I want to ensure cannot be accidentally
>  > deleted, so I ran
>  > 
>  > chattr -i /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt
>  > 
>  > (as root, of course).  Running lsattr against the same file produced
>  > 
>  > -------------e- /home/anne/WebPages/UserBase/filename.txt
>  > 
>  > 'i' doesn't show in ls -l filename, either.  I haven't come across
> 'e'
>  > before. What is it, and is my file immutable or not?
>  > 
>  > Anne
>  
>  1) You must be superuser (i.e. login as root, or use /su/) in order to
>  have chattr set the /i /attribute/.
>  2) -i /*removes* the i attribute, doesn't set it. From chattr man page,
>  the rule is: - sign removes, + sign adds = sign makes it the only
>  attribute. You should type:
>  
>  chatttr +i /home/anne/etc..
>  
>  then with lsattr you'll see something like:
>  ----i-------- file.txt
>   
Thanks, both of you.  Definitely a Duh! moment.  Put it down to senility ;-)

Anne
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