On 10/18/05, Ken Schneider
wrote: On Tue, 2005-10-18 at 13:02 -0400, Steve Jacobs wrote:
I've just begun downloading the JRE 1.5 RPM from Sun, in order to install it to my Suse 9.1 machine. While it's downloading, I started looking at the installation instructions.
One of the first steps is to add the "x" permission to the downloaded file. I'm still somewhat naive and ignorant in the ways of the penguin (and weak on security in general), so maybe this is an obvious question to most of you, but WHY wouldn't the file be executable from the get-go?
The x attribute signifies whether or not the file can be executed. You will have to ask the person that provided the file why.
Files on (web|ftp)servers are normally not executable for security reasons. Every file put onto the server is automatically chmod(ed) with the mask set for the directory.
...which is how it should be. For newbies like me, the easiest way to handle this is to right-click the file after downloading, click Properties then the Permissions tab and select the "Is executable" box. After that you're good to go. I just did this today with a binary I downloaded for cracking an old zip file I forgot the file to. :P -- kai linux - genuine windows replacement part