8.5. Changing Ownership
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Note
This step is not optional as some of the binaries in /tools are set u+s. leaving the permissions as is
could cause some commands, mount in particular, to fail later.
Currently, the /tools and /cross-tools directories are owned by the user
clfs, a user that exists only
on the host system. Although the /tools
and /cross-tools directories can be
deleted once the CLFS system has been finished, they can be retained
to build additional CLFS systems. If the /tools and /cross-tools directories are kept as is, the files
are owned by a user ID without a corresponding account. This is
dangerous because a user account created later could get this same
user ID and would own the /tools
directory and all the files therein, thus exposing these files to
possible malicious manipulation.
To avoid this issue, add the clfs
user to the new CLFS system later when creating the /etc/passwd file, taking care to assign it the same
user and group IDs as on the host system. Alternatively, assign the
contents of the /tools and /cross-tools directories to user root by running the following commands:
chown -Rv 0:0 /tools chown -Rv 0:0 /cross-tools
The commands use 0:0 instead
of root:root, because
chown is unable to
resolve the name “root” until
the passwd file has been created.