Re: xsane as root

From: Bruce Burden (brucegb@realtime.net)
Date: Sun Feb 27 2000 - 15:29:53 PST

  • Next message: Kevin Dalley: "xsane: tempfile handled insecurely"

       Hi Oliver,

            It is clear you have lost your objectivity regarding SANE and
       root UID. As I watched this topic unfurl, I have formed the distinct
       impression that you are dead set against root UID usage, and that
       you expected people to meekly accept your position that root UID
       usage is bad.

            Last week or so I suggested what I thought was a very reasonable
       suggestion - create an /etc/saneusers file with a list of "bad" UID's
       in it that SANE won't run under. This is common UNIX practice with
       networking (ftpusers). And, as I said before, it is a way to "do some
       thing" without being unduly burdensome for those of us who are going
       to run root UID regardless of your views, Oliver.

            As you have clearly said, anything you stick in the code, we can
       remove. So, why not do it in a smart, clean way, and be done with it?
       A simple call to something like getpwent(3), extract the user name,
       compare it to the handful of "bad" user names in the /etc/saneusrs
       file, on a match issue your message about root UID and be done with it.
       If we opt to remove root from the proscribed list, well, fine. Otherwise,
       we will remove your checks for UID from the code, and we will be right
       back where we started, which is using root UID.

            Face it, Oliver, you will not make us stop using root UID for
       everyday tasks. And if you don't believe that, repeat the following
       until it becomes clear:

            "I have been using root UID for 20 years."

                                                                    Bruce

    --
    Source code, list archive, and docs: http://www.mostang.com/sane/
    To unsubscribe: echo unsubscribe sane-devel | mail majordomo@mostang.com
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Feb 27 2000 - 15:28:15 PST