When a file has a symlink pointing to it, and one specifies the symlink's path later than the file's on compression, then on extraction, the file's permissions lose the setgid/setuid bits.

$ touch file            # create a file
$ chmod 6755 file       # set the suid/sgid bit
$ ln -sf file link      # make a symlink to the file
$ ls -la file link
-rwsr-sr-x  1 daniell  users  0 Jun 11 13:55:42 2010 file*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 daniell  users  4 Jun 11 13:55:49 2010 link@ -> file
$ find file link |busybox cpio -ovHnewc > pack.cpio     # package them
$ rm -f file link       # remove and ...
$ busybox cpio -dimvu < pack.cpio       # ... unpack the files
$ ls -la file link      # see what happened
-rwxr-xr-x  1 daniell  users  0 Jun 11 13:55:42 2010 file*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 daniell  users  4 Jun 11 13:55:49 2010 link@ -> file


The setuid/setgid bits didn't get restored.

It seems like the situation where one changes the mode bits prior to
changing the owner/group on a file:

$ touch file
$ chmod 6755 file ; ls -l file
-rwsr-sr-x 1 daniell daniell 0 2010-06-11 14.01.46 file*
$ chown ^C
$ sudo chown root:daemon file ; ls -l file
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root daemon 0 2010-06-11 14.01.46 file*


I couldn't find the corresponding cpio(1) code in the busybox source
(although I must admit I didn't try very hard), but I also noticed
another bug, which is kind of the same in sed(1):
It changes the modes before the owners when editing files in place, so
the setuid/setgid bits are also gets lost.


--- busybox-1.16.1/editors/sed.c.orig   2010-03-28 19:43:35.000000000 +0200
+++ busybox-1.16.1/editors/sed.c        2010-06-11 14:04:42.253430792 +0200
@@ -1342,8 +1342,8 @@

                        /* Set permissions/owner of output file */
                        fstat(fileno(file), &statbuf);
-                       fchmod(nonstdoutfd, statbuf.st_mode);
                        fchown(nonstdoutfd, statbuf.st_uid, statbuf.st_gid);
+                       fchmod(nonstdoutfd, statbuf.st_mode);
                        add_input_file(file);  
                        process_files();
                        fclose(G.nonstdout);