Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!warwick!cudcv
From: cudcv@daisy.warwick.ac.uk (Rob McMahon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: access(2) (was: Writing to A NON-Existing File in "C")
Message-ID: <531@sol.warwick.ac.uk>
Date: 23 Apr 88 21:21:25 GMT
References: <9654@jplgodo.UUCP> <14020030@hpisod2.HP.COM> <887@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <975@unmvax.unm.edu>
Reply-To: cudcv@cu.warwick.ac.uk (Rob McMahon)
Organization: Computing Services, Warwick University, UK
Lines: 23

In article <975@unmvax.unm.edu> mike@turing.UNM.EDU.UUCP (Michael I. Bushnell) writes:
>% whoami
>foo
>% su
>Password:
># nifty_program
>
>Note that nifty program will now have REAL uid foo and EFFECTIVE uid
>root.

Well I can't speak for SYS5, but BSD certainly doesn't work that way,
and I imagine su is one of those programs that has come down unchanged
from the mists of time.  su calls setuid which sets both the real and
effective uid's.

I suppose 1001 other people are going to say this, and I ought to keep
stumm for a while, but I hate to see misinformation going round.

Rob
-- 
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Rob McMahon, Computing Services, Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL, England