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.