Arch Linux

vf

Member

Registered: 2020-04-07

Posts: 73

[SOLVED] Root ownership

Is `/` supposed to be owned by someone? What "convention" says so? Who is supposed to own it by default? What could change that "automatically"? (maybe some program needs a ticket raising because it changes ownership where he shouldn't)

Because mine is owned by 999/UNKNOWN and people on internet say that it causes fewer problems if it's owned by 0/root

Last edited by vf (2021-03-25 11:29:44)

schard

Forum Moderator

From: Hannover

Registered: 2016-05-06

Posts: 2,688

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Re: [SOLVED] Root ownership

1) / is supposed to be owned by root.
2) I could not find an official document that says, that it must be owned by root. However, / being owned by UID 0 (root) is common practice on all unixoid operating systems, since it limits the access to the file attributes and thus possibly the right to write to files and folders, i.e. modify them, to the administrative account.
3) Only the root user can thusly change the ownership of /.
4) 999/UNKNOWN is thusly not supposed to own / on your system.

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vf

Member

Registered: 2020-04-07

Posts: 73

Re: [SOLVED] Root ownership

I still don't know what changed the ownership (first related problem occurred March 2, 2021, at 18h) or if it was like that by default, but for the rest I will just change the ownership and observe if it changes another time, thanks!

Last edited by vf (2021-03-25 11:34:27)

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,734

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Re: [SOLVED] Root ownership

My / is owned by root it seems:

% stat / | grep Access
Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)

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