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From: Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: fopen() of a read-only file for writing?
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:18:33 +0100
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"Joe Shead" <Joe@SheadProgramming.com> writes:
> I tested it, and it works. With a new non-root user, I got the EACCES that I
> expected.
>
> I'll just say, for anyone out there who wants to read my humble opinion,
> that sometimes root wants to set things (like relatively stable C++ code, or
> an initialization script) to read-only, so he knows that if he opens those
> files to take a look, he can't easily accidentally modify them. If he wants
> to change the file, he would actually like to be forced to do a chmod, make
> the deliberate changes, and then chmod it back to read-only. I do that all
> the time.

The most reliable solution would 'ensure that you have up-to-date
backups'. Apart from that, if on ext?, you might want to have a look
at chattr(1), specifically, the 'i' ('immutable') attribute.