Is my ROOT jacked?

[insuredjester]

Hello all,

I have a strange situation I would like to recount and get some input on.

The short version is that when I run the TAR command with -xvf as root
the extracted files show up in a directory owned by a different user and a
numerical group (500 to be exact). When I attempt to CD into the directory
the system tells me that the directory does not exist. After I chown the dir back to root and chgrp it out of 500 land, I can access the directory just fine.

I have checked the .bash_profile and disconnected the server from ldap using authconfig (this is CENTOS 4 btw) and the problem still persists... This is making me think that something is subverting commands created by root and executing them as another user... how can this be done? I was always under the impression that root is root and no one else.

If I need to post any config files or logs let me know.

[SegPhault]

Originally Posted by insuredjester

The short version is that when I run the TAR command with -xvf as root the extracted files show up in a directory owned by a different user and a numerical group

Root should not be jacked. You are running "tar" as root instead of a regular user. You activated the safety mechanism which prevents possible damage to the root account.

use tar -oxvf instead of -xvf. This will always make your files belong to user root and group root.

[insuredjester]

Works perfectly.

I was building source from a trusted source and figured it was safe to do the deed as root from start to finish... Thanks for the help.