Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: umb!umb!gplan@husc6.harvard.edu (George A. Planansky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: setuid for yp make
Keywords: SunOS
Message-ID: <196@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 17 Jul 89 06:24:45 GMT
Sender: root@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 24
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 74, message 17 of 18

I wish to allow non-root users to propogate changed Yellow Pages
databases, namely the passwd file data, from our Sun 3/280 server to 3/60
diskless clients, all running OS 4.01.  

As a first try, I made a script:

#! /bin/csh -b
chsh
(cd /etc/yp; make passwd)

and setuid'ed it, to its root owner.

QUESTIONs:

1. make nonetheless objects and bombs out, declaring that
it lacks write permission.  Why doesn't the setuid take care of
that?  What is the remedy?

2. I'm uneasy about invoking make via a setuid script.  Is it
as fraught as it seems?

George Planansky, Atmosphere Environment Research, Cambridge Mass.
617 547-6207
email:  gplan@ra.umb.edu