bug#81413: [PATCH] install: skip chown/chmod when -C finds nothing to change

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On 15/07/2026 22:56, Mateusz Nosek wrote:
> Hi Pádraig,
> 
> Good point, thanks. v2 leaves setdefaultfilecon() inside
> change_attributes(). Updated patch attached.
> 
> I began to wonder if need_copy() should also do a more rigorous check
> for the "selinux_enabled && use_default_selinux_context" case, to see
> if the destination already has the default context. But that's
> slightly out of scope of this patch, so just FYI.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mateusz
> 
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 1:18 PM Pádraig Brady <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> On 14/07/2026 23:30, Mateusz Nosek wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I attach a patch for the "install" utility: "install -C" was still
>>> calling chown/chmod on the destination even when need_copy() had
>>> already determined it matches (mode, owner, group, content), which
>>> could needlessly fail, e.g. on an immutable file.
>>>
>>> This is my first patch to coreutils, so apologies for any mistakes in
>>> the submission process -- happy to fix anything you point out.
>> This makes sense I think.
>>
>> You moved setdefaultfilecon() out of this consideration.
>> I'd be inclined to leave it where it was and treat the same way,
>> because the comparison also compares selinux context,
>> and also if the file is already present it probably has an appropriate context anyway.
I've pushed that with a NEWS entry.
I also pushed the attached as a follow up
to make cleanup of chattr +i files in tests more robust.

Marking this as done.

thanks!
Padraig
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