Does Debian change permissions automatically??

[au516@freenet.carleton.ca]

Hello all,
This is my 2nd and last attempt to get some feedback on this problem.  I
have received no replies to my first query.

Basically I'm trying to find out, from someone who knows Debian's
structure better than I, whether there is a mechanism in Debian that
changes permissions on files *automagically* to ensure system security.

I have not been able to locate this, and so cannot customize/fix this
behaviour.

In short then, here is my question:
Does Debian Potato change permissions automatically??

Thanks for all help rendered!
R.

On Fri, May 18, 2001 at 01:24:35PM -0500, au516@freenet.carleton.ca wrote:
> Hello all,
> This is a real mystery for me, and I need an answer to this problem:
> 
> As a regular user (not root) I want to be able to do a 'tail -f
> /var/log/messages' whenever I dialup my ISP.  This is all set up fine
> but there is a recurring permissions problem:  every time I reboot,
> *something* changes the group permissions of /var/log/messages 
> FROM:
> -rw-r-----    1 root     adm        225523 May 18 13:15 /var/log/messages
>                          ^^^
> BACK TO:
> -rw-r-----    1 root     root       225523 May 18 13:15 /var/log/messages
>                          ^^^^
> I chgrp back to adm, and something changes it back to root, etc.
> 
> I have looked through /etc/cron.daily and found nothing.  I have looked
> through /etc/init.d shell scripts.  I have tried tracking the
> permissions change through syslogd logging - all unsuccessful.  I cannot
> seem to locate what mechanism is automatically changing this files
> permissions.
> 
> Debian gurus - help?
> 
> R.