setfacl file modification time

[Robert Watson]

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006, Ceri Davies wrote:

> On 5 Jan 2006, at 18:43, Ahnjoan Amous wrote:
>
>> In 5.2.1-RELEASE, setfacl updates the modification time of the file
>> when acls are changed.  I haven't been able to find any complaints
>> about this behavior, is this something folks on the list would expect
>> when using setfacl?  If so, does anyone know a work around?
>
> PR 76818 is open for this issue, but there is no progress logged at present.

This likely occurs because EA writes modify the last modification timestamp. 
I can imagine a couple of possible avenues to explore in fixing it, including:

(1) Make system name space EA writes not update the modification time.

(2) Add a flag to allow EA writes to be marked as not updating the
     modification time.

It could be POSIX.1e has something to say about time stamp modifications for 
setfacl; personally I'd expect it to match the behavior of chmod.  And I 
believe chmod doesn't update the time stamp.

Robert N M Watson