mjhjmtu

Does the setuid is only applicable for execute file(only applicable with executable flags) ?

How it will affect other permission(read/write) of same file !

Eg:- If the the actual file permission is 4711, non-owner user can't read it. Why its not elevating the owner permission 4711 and allow others to read the content.

A non-owner can't read the file because setuid and setgid only affect the effective permissions when the file is executed; otherwise, the file permissions are used. Here's an example program to try:

readme.c

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) 
 FILE *f;
 int i;
 char c;

 if(argc>1) 
 f=fopen(argv[1],"rb");
 for(i=1; i++<100;) 
 c=getc(f);
 printf("%x%s", (int)c, i%50?" ":"n");
 
 fclose(f);
 

Compile it and change its permissions as someone other than who you want to test with (I used root):

# gcc -Wall -o readme readme.c
# chown root:root readme
# chmod ug+s,o-rw readme

Verify the permissions and try reading the file as your test user:

erik ~ $ ls -la readme
-rwsr-s--x 1 root root 8064 May 4 12:05 readme
erik ~ $ cat readme
cat: readme: Permission denied

Now try running the program and have it read itself:

erik ~ $ ./readme readme
7f 45 4c 46 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3e 0 1 0 0 0 fffffff0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 40 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 40 0 38 0 9 0 40 0 1d 0 1c 0 6 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 fffffff8 1 0

You'll see it had no problems, because the effective permissions changed to a user with read permissions.

Why does this happen? Several reasons come to mind. First, there's no real need for anyone to have read permissions to run an executable because the kernel (which loads the program) has full permissions to do anything already. You only need to have read permissions if you want to view the contents of the executable file, usually so you can copy the file. It's possible, to name some possible examples, that the executable has sensitive data that users shouldn't see (which is strongly discouraged, but has happened!) or the system is using this as a defence in depth to prevent people from finding exploits.