Re: Executable shell scripts

[Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Sat, May 13, 2006 at 01:27:54PM +0200, Mark Rosenstand wrote:
> > Every Unix I've ever seen works this way.  It'd be nice to have
> > unreadable executable scripts, but no one's ever done it.
> 
> According to
> http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/faq/part4/section-7.html both
> 4.3BSD and SunOS have. I can confirm that it works on current BSD's
> as well.

Incorrect.  The FAQ stated that BSD4.3 and SunOS support executable
shell scripts, but both BSD 4.3 and SunOS required that the shell
scripts be readable.  I know, I've personally worked on BSD 4.3
systems and worked on BSD 4.3 source.  Read the FAQ more carefully....

Let's try this on Solaris:

1% uname -a
SunOS all-night-tool.mit.edu 5.10 Generic_118822-26 sun4u sparc
2% cat > test-exe
#!/bin/sh
echo "This is a test of a non-readable shell script"
3% chmod 111 test-exe
4% ls -l test-exe
   2 ---x--x--x   1 tytso    mit           63 May 13 08:56 test-exe*
5% ./test-exe
./test-exe: ./test-exe: cannot open
6% chmod 755 test-exe
7% ./test-exe
This is a test of a non-readable shell script

Any other questions?

						- Ted