*BSD News Article 26029


Return to BSD News archive

Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!news.uoknor.edu!ns1.nodak.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!news.clark.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!jussieu.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!frmug.fr.net!renux.frmug.fr.net!keltia.frmug.fr.net!not-for-mail
From: roberto@keltia.frmug.fr.net (Ollivier Robert)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Can't su or read mail: permissions broken?
Date: 14 Jan 1994 00:19:53 +0100
Organization: A Happy FreeBSD-current Usenet Site
Lines: 29
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <2h4kv7$1b8@keltia.frmug.fr.net>
References: <MARK.684.2D340D59@ardsley.business.uwo.ca> <2h1nnn$gkk@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: keltia.frmug.fr.net
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

In article <2h1nnn$gkk@pdq.coe.montana.edu>,
Nate Williams <nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu> wrote:
>>Giving /var/mail 777 fixes it but giving it read/write for the world does 
>>not.  The X bit must be turned on.  I have tried all sorts of combos and 
>>only 777 makes email works.
>
>This should not be necessary.

/var/mail should have the sticky  bit set in  order to enable which  should
not be setgid mail (or bin) like elm.

drwxrwxrwt    2 bin      bin           512 Jan 13 23:28 /var/mail

>>Also, I have put myself in the wheel group, yet I can not su.
>>I think it is again a permission problem.  Meaning, If I give myself full 
>>rwx to /etc I would be able to su.

You  should NEVER do  that.   I cannot  emphasize  too  much on that.   And
/var/mail should be either 1777 or something like 775 but in that case, any
program that  should manipulate mailboxes  has to be  setuid or  setgid the
owner of /var/mail.

>Very much so.  I had little to no problems with 1.0.2.  

I agree. 1.0.2 is pretty stable. Even -current is too.
-- 
Ollivier ROBERT                          Ollivier.Robert@keltia.frmug.fr.net
A FreeBSD & PERL addict...                    PGP 2.3a Public Key on request
Running FreeBSD-current and very happy to do so !