Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!hodgenet!georgemartin
From: georgemartin@hodgenet.UUCP (George H. Martin)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: Another question 'bout .signature files
Message-ID: <224@hodgenet.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 90 04:54:36 GMT
References: <5911@umd5.umd.edu>
Reply-To: georgemartin@hodgenet.UUCP (George H. Martin)
Organization: Homer Dodge Network Systems, Inc.
Lines: 43

In article <5911@umd5.umd.edu> matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) writes:
>With all of this talk about .signature files, I have another question about
>them.
>
>What do you have to do to have one?  I have the .signature file in my root/
>home directory (~/), and it works for mail, but I keep getting an error when I
>try to use it with rn; something about inews has to see it.
>

If your $HOME directory NOT mode 0777, you'll have to make the code in inews.c
at line 1342+ look like this:


		(void) sprintf(bfr, "%s/%s", userhome, ".signature");
		if (access(bfr, 4) == 0) {
			setuid(uid);
			infp = fopen(bfr, "r");
			setuid(duid);
			if (infp == NULL) {
				(void) fprintf(stderr,
    "inews: \"%s\" left off (must be readable by \"inews\" owner)\n", bfr);


The original coding is:

		(void) sprintf(bfr, "%s/%s", userhome, ".signature");
		if (access(bfr, 4) == 0) {
			if((infp = fopen(bfr, "r")) == NULL) {
				(void) fprintf(stderr,
    "inews: \"%s\" left off (must be readable by \"inews\" owner)\n", bfr);

The fopen fails if the uid is not yours (it is the 'news' uid in your password
file probably). Anyway it fails because the directory doesn't allow the action.
This is preferable to having a wide open directory. This caused the message on
my system about 'readable by inews owner' in the code above. Maybe its your
problem too.


-- 
George H. Martin
uunet!hodgenet!georgemartin
Homer Dodge Network Systems, Inc.
+1 201 454 3333