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 directo-
     ries.  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 resident in memory is handled by the ker-
     nel's virtual memory system.

STICKY DIRECTORIES

     A directory whose `sticky bit' is set becomes an append-only directory, or, more accurately, a directory 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