755 directory permissions aren't allowing file creation by owning userid?

Question

I had overly permissive directory permissions (777) on my home dir, and just changed these to 755:

# cd
# pwd
/home/machinename/myuserid
# ls -ld .
drwxr-xr-x    9 myuserid  mygroupid         4096 Oct 17 11:44 .

That should be sufficient to create files in my home directory, but is not on this machine:

# ls -l x
ls: 0653-341 The file x does not exist.
# touch x
touch: 0652-046 Cannot create x.

Note that I am logged in as myself:

# id
uid=9175(myuserid) gid=7777(mygroupid) groups=200(othergroupid)

I can modify existing files:

# cat h
stuff
# echo blah >> h
# cat h
stuff
blah

so I know the filesystem isn't mounted read-only.

This is on AIX, and acledit $HOME shows:

*
* ACL_type   AIXC
*
attributes:
base permissions
    owner(myuserid):  rwx
    group(mygroupid):  r-x
    others:  r-x
extended permissions
    disabled

Which also appears to indicate that I'd be able to create (these acls look the same as those on my HOME dir on a "well behaved machine").

Answer 1

Our sysadmins suspected filesystem corruption, but fsck didn't flag any issues. They ended up recreating my home directory and deleting and recreating my userid with the same uid and group memberships.

Permissions and acls on the new home directory and the "new" userid appears identical, however, things are now working in the expected fashion.