[gpfsug-discuss] Setting NFS4 ACL with setxattr()

[Losen, Stephen C (scl)]

Hi folks,
I've been experimenting with python os.getxattr() and os.setxattr() for getting and setting NFS4 ACLs. I reverse engineered the format of the ACL returned by os.getxattr(), but is it documented anywhere?

I discovered a permission issue when running as a non-root user. If the target file is owned by a different user but has a NFS4 ACE with WRITE_ACL enabled for me, then os.setxattr() nevertheless fails for me with permission denied.  As expected, os.chmod() works for me and the chmod and mmputacl commands also work for me.

If I own the file, then os.setxattr() works.

Does anyone know if this is a feature or a bug? The behavior seems inconsistent.

Steve Losen
University of Virginia Research Computing