looking into editing the file management system

[Breeyon]

Hi
I am new to linux and ive found a copy of debian to play around with.
I always hear that linux is open source and ive found some files in the arch folder that seem to be editable. However, what i would like to do, as a little test, is to add a file attribute comparable to date last modified, to all files. for example, every time u edit a file it shows the name of person loged in as last person to modify the file.

I was trying to find which files to edit and where this information is kept. i am sure its in multiple files as i believe i must change the properties of generic files and be able to put code to save name when a file is modified.

can anyone point me in a direction? or does someone have experience with such changes to linux?

Regards,
Bryan

[reed9]

I always hear that linux is open source

It is.

ive found some files in the arch folder that seem to be editable

In linux, everything is a file. Most configuration happens through text files. These configurations are of course options that have already been programmed in. Unless you downloaded the source code for a program, that's not what you're looking at.

You could probably write a bash script that would do what you want. I'm not a programmer though. Modification times are easily had for files. I would guess you could cross reference that with user log-in times to find out who was logged in at the time a file was modified.

For actually hacking the code to add a new attribute, I'm not sure which program deals with that, but I think it's included in the core-utils. The source code is of course available.

User Management
24 Hour Apps: Linux Tips 9: Find recently modified files