[news.software.b] directory ownership in /usr/spool/news

amos@instable.UUCP (11/23/86)

Running 2.10.2 on 4.3BSD, I have found out that when a posting was
done to a newsgroup whose directory was not there yet, it was created
owned by the poster, rather than 'news'; this prevented 'news' from
creating any articles in it. It seems that rnews tries to work in the
poster's uid rather than use its suid.

This 'should not have happened' since each new group is created with its
directory, but in one of the latest newsgroup rushes, mkdir sometime
failed - it tried to create all groups at once, forking 'inews -C' for
each, which sometimes tried to mkdir 'a/b' before 'a' was done.

I have noticed that in 2.11, 'checkgroups' is rush-proof since it only
tells you what to 'inews -C'; but is the suid behaviour described above
a bug or a feature? was it fixed in 2.11? (I'm not waiting for the next
rush to find out).
-- 
	Amos Shapir

National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel
(01-972) 52-522261  amos%nsta@nsc
34.48'E 32.10'N

rick@seismo.UUCP (11/23/86)

You either have a badly broken 4.3bsd or you have misinstalled the news 
software.

Since a 4.3bsd vax is my main development system, its the ONE system
I am confident everything works on.

I suspect you didn not install rnews as setuid news or somthing similar.

Its not fixed in 2.11, since it isn't broken in 2.10.2

---rick

amos@instable.UUCP (Amos Shapir) (11/24/86)

In article <42609@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams) writes:
>You either have a badly broken 4.3bsd or you have misinstalled the news 
>software.

I admit, the news software were misinstalled; but still, I did run
all the 'make install' and 'make update' exactly according to instruction.
The trouble was, I didn't know 'mkactive' is going to create the new
newsgroups *all at once*, resulting in the load going up to 30, and as many
angry users on my back, and some failed 'mkdir's.

As I said, it was fixed (sort of) in 2.11 - at least, it doesn't happen
automatically. Seriously - the news is the best documented and maintained
programs I have ever seen, obviously the result of growing up under the
care of loving parents :-)
-- 
	Amos Shapir
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel
(01-972) 52-522261  amos%nsta@nsc 34.48'E 32.10'N