Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!haven!uvaarpa!mmdf
From: worley@compass.com (Dale Worley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: #! troubles
Message-ID: <2047@uvaarpa.virginia.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 90 22:44:36 GMT
Sender: mmdf@uvaarpa.virginia.edu
Reply-To: worley@compass.com
Lines: 35


   X-Name: Dave Burton

   In article <1970@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> worley@compass.com writes:
   |The *real* solution for this problem is to have the kernel search your
   |path when it sees a #!.  Otherwise, you have to be root to install a
   |new interpreter in the "standard" place, because the #!'s have the
   |interpreter's location hardcoded in.

   Assuming the kernel gets your $PATH (which it doesn't, but pretend) -

Well, exec() seems to be able to pass it to the new program, and
exec() seems to be a kernel call...

   What happens when the PATH is ".:/bin:/usr/bin", and the
   script is suid root? How about:

Yes, of course, if you have a setuid script, you don't want to have
the kernel search the path for the interpreter.  But setuid things are
*always* a special case.  If you want to write setuid scripts, you
have to have a trusted interpreter, and root has to install it in a
safe place, and the script has to hard-code its location.  

But in the ordinary case, it would make life much easier if
interpreter paths didn't have to be hard-coded.

Dale Worley		Compass, Inc.			worley@compass.com
--
...and finally, a thought that I ripped off from someone a few months back:

Let us live!!!
Let us love!!!
Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!

You first.