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From: david@bacchus.esa.oz.au (David Burren)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: who am i?
Message-ID: <839@bacchus.esa.oz.au>
Date: 28 Nov 90 04:37:56 GMT
References: <6358@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au>
Organization: none
Lines: 21

In <6358@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> s887212@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Stephen Riehm [Romulis]) writes:

>I am writing a program that needs to know who is running it. at the moment
>I am using getuid() to index into the /etc/passwd file for the details
>needed (like name etc). However I have noticed that it doesn't always
>return the right response after the process table (I assume) gets a bit
>messed up. (Xterms do wonderful things to the process table dont they?! :)

>Is there a GUARANTEED way of getting the information about the user?
>I dont want to rely on environment variables as they can easily be forged
>or not set by the user.

If getuid() does not return the correct value then surely your Unix is dead,
broken, ratshit, ....... _DEAD_?

Are you sure you're not losing it somewhere after the getuid()?
You're not doing a setuid(geteuid()) somewhere from within a suid program?
_____________________________________________________________________________
David Burren [Athos]                          Email: david@bacchus.esa.oz.au
Software Development Engineer                 Phone: +61 3 819 4554
Expert Solutions Australia, Hawthorn, VIC