[comp.mail.misc] new Unix 3.2 and permission problem??

paine@fungus.dec.com (Willy Paine) (11/28/89)

I recently upgrade to SCO Unix 3.2 from Xenix and I notice some
permission problems for non-superuser or non-root in mailer and bbs
programs.

I tried to send mail out of Elm 2.2 PL8 and Mush but I am getting exact
same error message:

[Permission denied] Can't Create text file to be queued.


I think this is part of SCO Unix error message.  I have some problem on
executing XBBS but I modified somewhere in source code and works fine as
far as I am awared.  Can you help me with strange permission problem?
Don't tell me to use "chmod 777" on /tmp or directories.  This does not
work this way but this is poor security practice.

Thank you...
willy

................................................................
.   Willy Paine                      BBS     +1-206-822-4615   .
.   willyp@seaeast.WA.COM            FidoNet 1:343/15          .
.   uunet!nwnexus!seaeast!willyp     fungus.dnet.dec.com!paine . 
................................................................

steve@txsil.UUCP (Steve McConnel) (11/29/89)

In article <8911271655.AA04386@decwrl.dec.com> paine@fungus.dec.com
 (Willy Paine) writes:
>
>I recently upgrade to SCO Unix 3.2 from Xenix . . .
>I tried to send mail out of Elm 2.2 PL8 and Mush but I am getting exact
>same error message:
>
>[Permission denied] Can't Create text file to be queued.
> . . .

We've had similar problems with SCO UNIX V/386 version 3.2

The exact same message popped out from the Rnmail script at the point it
invoked "/usr/lib/sendmail -t <XXX" to send a message.  I think the message
itself comes from inside /usr/mmdf/bin/submit, but haven't yet figured out
a fix.  doing chmod 777 to a couple of likely directories (so who wants to be
secure other than the SCO marketing dept? :-) didn't help.  The only thing
that worked was running Rnmail (or usr/lib/sendmail) while logged in as mmdf.
Since /usr/lib/sendmail is setuid/setgid to mmdf, and /usr/mmdf/bin/submit is
setuid to mmdf, i can't figure it out except that SCO's paranoid security
"enhancements" have struck again in the direction of making the system
unusable.

Naturally, there's no documentation for either /usr/lib/sendmail or
/usr/mmdf/bin/submit in either of the System Administrator manuals, as far
as i can tell, and no online documention either.  it makes me long for the
good ol' days with well-documented, easily-configured, user-friendly 4.2BSD
sendmail. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
-- 
Stephen McConnel
Summer Institute of Linguistics  PHONE: 214-709-2418        
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road          UUCP: ...!{texbell|convex|pollux}!txsil!steve
Dallas, TX 75236              Internet: steve@txsil.lonestar.org