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From: nagel@esp.ics.uci.edu (Mark Nagel)
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: Problem with nntp/C-news/nfs interactions
Message-ID: <269C9E02.1535@ics.uci.edu>
Date: 12 Jul 90 15:57:54 GMT
References: <1990Jul11.164853.1715@phri.nyu.edu> <1990Jul12.040744.15683@bhpese.oz.au>
Lines: 19

Sm@bhpese.oz.au (Scott Merrilees) writes:

>The only reason I can see for nntp to need to be root is for the initial
>bind of the nntp server socket.  My nntp binds this socket, then does a
>setgid(news_group); setuid(news_owner); and then runs happily.  I only use
>nntp to server articles to nntp based news readers, so I can't comment on
>xfer, link, ihave/sendme etc.  This nntp 1.5.8.

If you run it out of inetd, you can even avoid this step, however,
on some systems (a Sequent Symmetry, for example), you cannot use
the low disk space avoidance code unless nntpd is running as root,
since it needs to read the master block of the device.  I used to
run as news before that code was added, now I have to leave it
running as root since I find it useful to have that safety net.
--
Mark Nagel
UC Irvine Department of ICS   +----------------------------------------+
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