Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!tekbspa!oblio!gordonp
From: gordonp@oblio.UUCP (Gordon Prieur)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Why is xterm suid root.
Summary: suid xterms...
Message-ID: <413@oblio.UUCP>
Date: 21 Feb 89 15:09:59 GMT
References: <8902191022.AA28931@sunchat.sun.oz>
Organization: Counterpoint Computers, Inc. San Jose CA 95131
Lines: 11

In article <8902191022.AA28931@sunchat.sun.oz>, richb@sunchat.UUCP (Rich Burridge) writes:
> Why is xterm suid? As far as I can tell nothing breaks if it is NOT
> suid and if it IS suid it sometimes doesn't work if the effective uid
> is not equal to the real uid.
> 
    If xterm isn't suid, it can have trouble opening pseudo ttys. If the ptty
is both readable and writeable, the xterm will succeed. If not, it will silently
fail. This is the only problem I've found with an xterm which wasn't suid.

Gordon Prieur
Acer Counterpoint