rkl@anduin.cs.liverpool.ac.uk (09/04/90)
Someone brought to my attention the following "loophole" when running /etc/profile or /etc/csh.login under HP-UX (6.2,6.5 or 7.0) on Series 300 or 800 machines: $ telnet hostname login: fred IFS=euq # Yes, login can assign env. vars. Password: <Type password) Depending on the chars assigned to IFS, you are very likely to get "test: argument expected" and a complete bomb out to the shell prompt. We implement a "home-brew" quotaing check (roll on 8.0 !) at login and this circumvents it quite easily. How to fix it: The IFS variable is used by ksh to determine the separators for read and test and doesn't actually need to be defined (it will default to space, tab and newline - $20,$09,$0A - if it isn't). So put: unset IFS at the top of your /etc/profile and unsetenv IFS at the top of your /etc/csh.login. I assume this is OK and won't wreck anything - anyone else want to check this out ? Richard K. Lloyd, *** This is a MicroVAX II running VAX/VMS V5.3-1 *** Computer Science Dept., * JANET : RKL@UK.AC.LIV.CS.AND or * Liverpool University, * RKL@000010500211.FTP.MAIL * Merseyside, England, * Internet : RKL%and.cs.liv.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu * Great Britain. *** Please note: New e-mail address ! ***