Re: setrichacl(1) man page review comments

From: Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)
Date: Sun Feb 14 2016 - 16:29:23 EST


Hi Andreas,

Here's a few more comments on the latest setrichacl(1)
page that I pulled out of the git repo.

> .\"
> .\" RichACL Manual Pages
> .\"
> .\" Copyright (C) 2015,2016 Red Hat, Inc.
> .\" Written by Andreas Gruenbacher <agruenba@xxxxxxxxxx>
> .\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
> .\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> .\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
> .\" the License, or (at your option) any later version.
> .\"
> .\" The GNU General Public License's references to "object code"
> .\" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any
> .\" document formatting or typesetting system, including
> .\" intermediate and printed output.
> .\"
> .\" This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
> .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
> .\"
> .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
> .\" License along with this manual. If not, see
> .\" <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
> .\"
> .TH SETRICHACL 7 2015-09-01 "Linux" "Rich Access Control Lists"
>
> .SH NAME
> setrichacl \- Set Rich Access Control Lists
>
> .SH SYNOPSIS
> .B setrichacl
> .RI [ option "]... [" file ]...
>
> .SH DESCRIPTION
> The
> .B setrichacl
> utility sets or modifies Rich Access Control Lists (RichACLs) of files and
> directories.
>
> The
> .B \-m
> and
> .B \-s
> options expect an ACL or parts of an ACL on the command line. The
> .B \-M
> and
> .B \-S
> options read an ACL or parts of an ACL from a file. In either case, the entry
> format is described in section
> .I TEXT FORM

.I Text form

> of the
> .BR richacl (7)
> manual page. The single-letter or long forms of flags and permissions can be
> mixed arbitrarily. Multiple entries are separated by whitespace, newlines or

s/newlines/newlines,/

(You already use the "Oxford comma" convention elsewhere, so be consistent.)


> commas.
>
> Note that the order of entries in a RichACL matters, and that reordering

s/matters/is significant/

> entries may change the permissions granted.
>
> The use of
> .B deny
> entries is discouraged. If
> .B deny
> entries are used, they should be placed ahead of
> .B allow
> entries for improved interoperability with Windows where possible.
>
> When the file masks are not specified, they are computed automatically.
>
> When the ACL to be set is simple enough that the traditional file permission
> bits can express the same permissions,
> .B setrichacl
> sets the file permission bits and removes the ACL. When
> .BR setrichacl 's
> counterpart utility,
> .BR getrichacl (1),
> is used on a file or directory that does not have a RichACL, it displays the
> access permissions defined by the file permission bits as an ACL. This means
> that for simple ACLs,
> .B getrichacl
> may display a slightly different ACL which is equivalent to the one that was
> set with
> .BR setrichacl .
>
> .SS Permissions
>
> Setting ACLs or changing the file permission bits is allowed to the file owner,
> to processes which have the
> .B write_acl
> permission, and to processes which have the
> .B CAP_FOWNER
> capability.
>
> .SH OPTIONS
> .TP
> \fB\-\-modify\fR \fIacl\fR, \fB\-m\fR \fIacl\fR
> Modify the ACL of \fIfile\fR by replacing existing entries with the entries in
> \fIacl\fR, and adding all new entries. When the permissions of an entry are
> empty, remove the entry.
> .TP
> \fB\-\-modify\-file\fR \fIacl_file\fR, \fB\-M\fR \fIacl_file\fR
> Identical to \fB\-\-modify\fR, but read the ACL from \fIacl_file\fR instead. If
> the file is \(lq\-\(rq, read from standard input.
> .TP
> \fB\-\-set\fR \fIacl\fR, \fB\-s\fR \fIacl\fR
> Set the ACL of \fIfile\fR to \fIacl\fR. Any previous ACL is replaced.
> ACL entries are separated by whitespace, newlines, or commas.
> .TP
> \fB\-\-set\-file\fR \fIacl_file\fR, \fB\-S\fR \fIacl_file\fR
> Identical to \fB\-\-set\fR, but read the ACL from \fIacl_file\fR instead. If
> the file is \(lq\-\(rq, read from standard input.
> .TP
> \fB\-\-remove\fR, \fB\-b\fR
> Remove all extended permissions and revert to the file permission bits only.
> .TP
> \fB\-\-version\fR, \fB\-v\fR
> Display the version of
> .B setrichacl
> and exit.
> .TP
> \fB\-\-help\fR, \fB\-h\fR
> Display command-line usage help text.
>
> .\" .SH EXAMPLES
>
> .SH AUTHOR
> Written by Andreas GrÃnbacher <agruenba@xxxxxxxxxx>.
>
> Please send your bug reports, suggested features and comments to the above address.
>
> .SH CONFORMING TO
> Rich Access Control Lists are Linux-specific.
>
> .SH SEE ALSO
> .BR getrichacl (1),
> .BR richacl (7)

Cheers,

Michael