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From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: How to prevent VI from getting a shell?
Keywords: vi
Message-ID: <1990Sep18.204300.25376@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 18 Sep 90 20:43:00 GMT
References: <501@trux.UUCP>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 16

In article <501@trux.UUCP> car@trux.UUCP (Chris Rende) writes:
>If I want to give someone access to VI and yet deny them access to a shell,
>how do I prevent the user from using VI's "<ESC>:!" command?

>I have an application program which launches VI. I don't want the user to
>be able to get to a shell from VI. (I also don't want the user to be able
>to launch other commands from VI. I.e., No :!pwd, or !!sort, etc...).

Sorta defeats the purpose of using vi unless you really don't have any
useful programs to :r !command or :w !command.  But, if that's what you
want, why not build a suitable environment in a subdirectory (TMPDIR,
vi itself, etc.) and chroot() before starting vi.  It's hard to hurt
anything if you can't get there.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us