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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!decwrl!qubix!msc
From: msc@qubix.UUCP (Mark Callow)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Mail bug
Message-ID: <663@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Nov-83 19:38:41 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.663
Posted: Fri Nov 25 19:38:41 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Nov-83 07:28:37 EST
References: <262@bunkerb.UUCP>
Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA
Lines: 19

One cause of this problem is that the PARENT of the directory you are in
does not have world read permission. I.e., mode 4 is not set.  The same
thing happens with certain uucp variants and with inews.  The problem
is that these programs run suid something else (such as uucp and newsmgr)
and they call pwd to determine the current working directory.  pwd,
by this time running as user uucp (for instance) attempts to open the
parent directory for reading fails, since uucp doesn't have read permission
on the directory, leading to these error messages.

The problem arose here because we have a hierarchy in our directories
based on company departments and everyone's parent directory is owned
by her department, in her department's group and is mode 751.

My solution was to make pwd run suid root.
-- 
	Mark Callow, Saratoga, CA.
	...{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!
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