Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!mhres!jv
From: jv@mhres.mh.nl (Johan Vromans)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: strange failure of chown(2)
Keywords: chown inetd
Message-ID: <2136@mhres.mh.nl>
Date: 26 Jul 88 20:28:20 GMT
Organization: Multihouse NV, the Netherlands
Lines: 30

On my system, HP9000/320 running HP-UX 5.3, I encounter the following
problem:

I have a server configured under inetd, with the following line in
/etc/inetd.conf :

	smtp	stream tcp  nowait  mailer  /etc/smtpd	smtpd

This program reads a smtp message from stdin, and then execs a mail
delivery program. This program runs setgid 'mail'. This program creates a
file in /usr/mail/, and calls chown(2) to change ownership to someone else
(e.g. the recipient of the mail).

The 'chown'-call fails with EPERM: "Not owner". But the file which was
created in /usr/mail/ has owner 'mailer' and group 'mail' - just as
can be expected.

So - the program CREATES a file (this makes the program owner by definition),
and then gets error NOT OWNER when it tries to chown it.

As far as I have tried, this only happens when the program is run from the
inetd. The problem disappears when I have the program run as user
'root' (change "mailer" into "root" in the /etc/inetd.conf line).

Although I found a good work-around (running it as user 'root') I wonder
what is happening here.

Any suggestions?
-- 
	Johan