Chris Martin wrote:
Does anyone know why I have this? (likely a silly question):
RomperRoom:/dev # ls -l cdrom lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Dec 5 11:03 cdrom -> hdc
I was having trouble accessing my CDRom as non-root, and it turns out that it was because the permissions on /dev/hdc weren't set correctly even though those for /dev/cdrom were.
Basically, cdrom is a symlink, a shortcut if your familar to Windows, or an alias if your familar to Macintosh. The privleges of the symlink don't always reflect the privleges of the file they link to, in your case the drive. As a standard, when a symlink is created, it gives all users/groups access to the symlink, but the actual permissions still reside on the file/drive it links to. The purpose of a symlink is give the user something easier to type without knowing the exact path to the file/drive in question. ie: /cdrom instead of /dev/hdc sometime after you configure your system, will you remember that /dev/hdc is your cdrom as readily as you can remember /cdrom is? -- Ec|ipse on EFnet - tomas@primenet.com - <A HREF="http://www.primenet.com/~tomas"><A HREF="http://www.primenet.com/~tomas</A">http://www.primenet.com/~tomas</A</A>> Ec|ipse@|Watcher| - <A HREF="http://pacific.undertow.net/~tomas/no-net.html"><A HREF="http://pacific.undertow.net/~tomas/no-net.html</A">http://pacific.undertow.net/~tomas/no-net.html</A</A>> Slackware Linux v3.6 - Kernels 2.0.35/2.1.131 - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archiv at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>