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STICKY(8)                 BSD System Manager's Manual                STICKY(8)

NAME
     sticky -- sticky text and append-only directories

DESCRIPTION
     A special file mode, called the sticky bit (mode S_ISVTX), is used to indicate special treatment for
     shareable executable files and directories.  See chmod(2) or the file /usr/include/sys/stat.h for an
     explanation of file modes.

STICKY TEXT EXECUTABLE FILES
     The sticky bit has no effect on executable files. All optimization on whether text images remain resi-dent resident
     dent in memory is handled by the kernel's virtual memory system.

STICKY DIRECTORIES
     A directory whose `sticky bit' is set becomes an append-only directory, or, more accurately, a direc-tory directory
     tory in which the deletion of files is restricted.  A file in a sticky directory may only be removed or
     renamed by a user if the user has write permission for the directory and the user is the owner of the
     file, the owner of the directory, or the super-user.  This feature is usefully applied to directories
     such as /tmp which must be publicly writable but should deny users the license to arbitrarily delete or
     rename each others' files.

     Any user may create a sticky directory.  See chmod(1) for details about modifying file modes.

BUGS
     Neither open(2) nor mkdir(2) will create a file with the sticky bit set.

HISTORY
     A sticky command appeared in Version 32V AT&T UNIX.

4th Berkeley Distribution        June 5, 1993        4th Berkeley Distribution