Dan Karron@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (12/16/90)
I have had a number of spookey problems (sendmail errors, users login password) that were corrected by making /etc/passwd writable. Why does everyone need to write /etc/passwd ? I thought all they needed was to read it ! Dan. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | karron@nyu.edu (E-mail alias that will always find me) | | Fax: 212 340 7190 * Dan Karron, Research Associate | | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * New York University Medical Center | | 560 First Avenue \*\ Pager <1> (212) 397 9330 | | New York, New York 10016 \**\ <2> 10896 <3> <your-number-here> | | (212) 340 5210 \***\_________________________________________ | | Main machine: karron.med.nyu.edu (128.122.135.3) IRIS 85GT | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) (12/16/90)
In article <9012151655.AA06791@karron.med.nyu.edu> karron@cmcl2.nyu.edu writes: >Why does everyone need to write /etc/passwd ? I thought all they >needed was to read it ! This is/was used by installation scripts to test whether they have root privileges - if the script can write on /etc/passwd (which it checked with a "test -w /etc/passwd" in all the cases I've seen), it assumed it could do what it wanted without permission problems. These days /etc/passwd often has '-r--r--r--' permissions in the presence of YP/NIS, so scripts that do this are going to fail. This avoids problems with 'who am i' vs 'whoami' to find out the effective uid, since the latter is only on BSD systems. -- Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca Tel: (416) 978-7094 Fax: (416) 978-8775
fsfacca@AVELON.LERC.NASA.GOV (Tony Facca) (12/18/90)
> > I have had a number of spookey problems (sendmail errors, users login > password) that were corrected by making /etc/passwd writable. > > Why does everyone need to write /etc/passwd ? I thought all they > needed was to read it ! > /etc/passwd runs just fine with read-only permissions for us. It should definitley not be writable by everyone, or why bother having a password file? -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Facca | fsfacca@avelon.lerc.nasa.gov | phone: 216-433-8318 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are at Witt's end. Passages lead off in *all* directions.