File attributes puzzle

[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