Another oddity that should never happen: root cannot write file that he does not own. Demonstration (root running bash):
root# touch /tmp/x root# ls -l /tmp/x -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Aug 10 09:39 /tmp/x root# echo a > /tmp/x root# chown 2:2 /tmp/x root# ls -l /tmp/x -rw-r--r-- 1 bin bin 2 Aug 10 09:39 /tmp/x root# echo b > /tmp/x -bash: /tmp/x: Permission denied root# chown 0:0 /tmp/x root# ls -l /tmp/x -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2 Aug 10 09:39 /tmp/x root# echo c > /tmp/x This issue seems to reproduce on all machines where I tried. Quite possibly unrelated (so I may cop some flak) ... or maybe these "impossible" happenings have a common cause? Cheers, Paul