Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: (C News) limit filesize and inews
Message-ID: <1991Jan8.222353.205@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1991Jan7.182907.13583@zoo.toronto.edu> <3480@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1991Jan08.180949.8613@decuac.dec.com> <3521@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 1991 22:23:53 GMT

In article <3521@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) writes:
>I have proposed a solution. Use the B-NEWS USG directory/file history
>approach. History files are reduced in size so that the limit does not get 
>reached.

What limit?  The 2MB limit set in the original example?  What if Joe Dumbuser
or Fred Fascistadmin sets it to 50KB?  Reducing the size of the files by a
small integer constant just isn't a solution at all.

>Another solution proposed is to write a wrapper program that executes as
>root. This works, but may have security implications. It also assumes that
>the news administrator has system administration authority...

This is the really troublesome aspect of the whole thing:  it basically
can't be solved without fixing the kernel.  Setuid-root wrappers are not
something that one accepts happily.  (Yes, we perpetrated one in C News
to solve certain unusual problems, but we are probably going to get rid
of it or at least revise it severely.)

>I wonder how "special" my special case is. Perhaps System V-style filesize
>limiting is not as widespread as I thought. I was under the impressions that
>there were a bunch of 386 unix varients out there that had this stuff in in.

I think the initial default ulimit value is the single most commonly hacked
aspect of System V.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry