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From: wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Mail bug
Message-ID: <161@astrovax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Dec-83 23:12:07 EST
Article-I.D.: astrovax.161
Posted: Thu Dec  1 23:12:07 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Dec-83 04:33:27 EST
References: <262@bunkerb.UUCP> <1119@pur-phy.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics
Lines: 11

Actually the pwd error message is usually caused by being in a directory whose
path from the root is not world readable (for example, a subdirectory of a
private correspondence directory).  pwd tries to reconstruct your full
directory name my starting at the root and working downward.  In mail or
in inews pwd is executed by a program setuid to a uid other than root.  Then
pwd just does not have the privileges to do its job properly.  We solved it
here by making pwd a suid to root program.  I haven't been able to think of
any security holes this would cause.
-- 
Bill Sebok			Princeton University, Astrophysics
{allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton}!astrovax!wls