Re: Fun with FUP and root.

• Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 16:04:04 PST
• From:
  Shadow <shadow@worldone.com>
• cc: Judy Anderson <yduj@cs.stanford.edu>, MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
• Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
• In-Reply-To: <199702262112.QAA02451@force.galt.com>

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On Wed, 26 Feb 1997, Erik R. Ogan wrote:
> 	Hmm, maybe if the user to run as could be set through a 
> 	command line option, or an environment variable.

The standard way that I have seen to do this is as follows (based on the
fact that "most" Unix software does this):

	Somewhere in a configuration file (the database itself, perhaps?
Where isn't *too* important...) set a username to switch to, and make the
binary setuid root.  The server would then start as root, and depending on
the code structure (I'm not familiar with the server code), it would do
one of two things:

	Either:

		1.  immediate setuid() to appropriate user
			-initialize stuff
		2.  setuid() to root
			-create/bind privileged socket
		3.  setuid() back to appropriate user

	Or (preferred):
		1.  Initialize stuff
		2.  Create/bind socket
		3.  setuid() to appropriate user and never setuid() back
                    to root.

Of course, this should also be a compile-time option in options.h or some
such.  I think this is a great idea...

JMHO,
- --Shadow

*..__--<< You know something's up when your Thought process is idle. >>--__..*

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shadow   28365  0.0  0.2 2.84M 264K ttyp1    S    12:57:12     0:00.02 Thought

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• Re: Fun with FUP and root.
• From: Jeff Dubrule <igor@linguist.dartmouth.edu>
• Re: Fun with FUP and root.
• From: "Erik R. Ogan" <erik@galt.com>

• Re: Fun with FUP and root.
• From: "Erik R. Ogan" <erik@galt.com>

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