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From: brad@ds3.bradley.edu (Bradley E. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: elm not access files in home directory
Message-ID: <1990Oct24.212255.5138@bradley2.bradley.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 90 21:22:55 GMT
Sender: news@bradley2.bradley.edu
Organization: Bradley University
Lines: 34

We have a funny problem here with elm.  I am going to fix it but thought
other people would be interested in this.  Also if we might get this
fix into some release would be nice.

Configuration:

AT&T 3B2/1000-70 UNIX 3.2.3
elm 2.3 P5

usersetup:
	Due to the fact that this machine is a student machine, we have
	made it somewhat harder for users to screw themselves up.  One
	of these changes is that each student is in his own group
	(ie login=doe, group=doe).  Also each students home directory
	is owned by  'user' (which is an adminstrative login not used).
	So each home directory is 770 ('drwxrwx--- 15 user doe  ....).
	This makes so that tojan horses can't change a users home
	directory's permissions.

now the problem.
	Since elm runs setgid(mail) (which means the efective id is mail).
	The students can't save options or mail because they can't get
	access to their home directory.

solution.
	Have elm swap the group id from mail -> doe -> mail (and back again
	as needed) when it needs to create a lock file.  This way one has
	access to their own files.


Any takers?  thoughts?

brad smith
brad@bradley.edu