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From: naftoli@aecom.UUCP (Robert N. Berlinger)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.usg
Subject: bug in System Vr2 cron(1)
Message-ID: <1482@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Apr-85 15:51:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: aecom.1482
Posted: Tue Apr 30 15:51:53 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-May-85 04:35:59 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 14

If a non-root user ups his ulimit (say by "su root; ulimit 10000; 
su somebody") and then adds a crontab entry, when the entry is 
finally executed that user recieves a letter in the mail about 
"bad ulimit" and the job fails.  This is because cron implements 
the preservation of ulimits by simply prepending a 'ulimit XXXX' 
to the list of commands that are input to the shell.  When cron 
runs the job, it is run with the permissions of the non-root user 
who can't up his ulimit (cron runs at the normal 2048) hence the 
error message.  A quick and kludgy fix would be to run cron at a 
very high ulimit and therefore any change of ulimit would be in 
the down direction rather than up.  
-- 
Robert Berlinger
...{philabs,cucard,pegasus,ihnp4,rocky2}!aecom!naftoli