Bruno Haible <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jim Meyering wrote: >> > --preserve[=ATTR_LIST] preserve the specified attributes (default: >> > mode,ownership,timestamps), if possible >> > additional attributes: context, links, all >> >> ... it's the SELinux context, > > Why does the default list of preserved attributes (mode,ownership,timestamps) > not include the SELinux context? > > The SELinux FAQ [1] states that > "When backing up and recovering files with a SELinux system, care must be > taken to preserve SELinux context information." > > Naïvely, I would think this rule should also hold when copying file trees > as root using "cp -p"?
That is a reasonable conclusion, but it is not feasible. Unconditionally requiring the preservation of each file's SELinux context would result in unacceptably frequent non-zero exit status from the likes of cp -p and cross-partition mv. That would be seen as a regression. Determining automatically when to attempt to preserve SELinux context, and when it is not feasible to do so, is not tractable. BTW, POSIX already specifies what cp -p must copy. If cp cannot copy some required-to-copy attribute, POSIX says how it must fail. Hence, I think it is inappropriate to make cp -p fail for some new reason like failure to preserve SELinux context. _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
