[HDFS-3074] HDFS ignores group of a user when creating a file or a directory, and instead inherits

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Affects Version/s: 0.23.1
• Component/s: namenode
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Harsh J
• Created: 11/Mar/12 07:23
• Updated: 19/Mar/12 21:21
• Resolved: 11/Mar/12 19:10

Description

When creating a file or making a directory on HDFS, the namesystem calls pass null for the group name, thereby having the parent directory permissions inherited onto the file.

This is not how the Linux FS works at least.

For instance, if I have today a user 'foo' with default group 'foo', and I have my HDFS home dir created as "foo:foo" by the HDFS admin, all files I create under my directory too will have "foo" as group unless I chgrp them myself. This makes sense.

Now, if my admin were to change my local accounts' default/primary group to 'bar' (but did not change so on my homedir on HDFS, and I were to continue writing files to my home directory or any subdirectory that has 'foo' as group, all files still get created with group 'foo' - as if the NN has not realized the primary group of the mapped shell account has already changed.

On linux this is the opposite. My login session's current primary group is what determines the default group on my created files and directories, not the parent dir owner.

If the create and mkdirs call passed UGI's group info (UserGroupInformation.getCurrentUser().getGroupNames()[0] should give primary group?) along into their calls instead of a null in the PermissionsStatus object, perhaps this can be avoided.

Or should we leave this as-is, and instead state that if admins wish their default groups of users to change, they'd have to chgrp all the directories themselves?

Issue Links

• is related to: HADOOP-5769 NameNode.mkdirs does not create directories owned by current group