Re: [Sheflug] running as root

["Alex Hudson" <nospam [at] york.ac.uk>]

>>> Race type conditions are ripe :)
>>
>>Err, are you sure about that? Off the top of my head, I can't think of
>>one.
>
> The idea of the race condition AIUI goes something like this:

Yup, seems reasonable.

> I have never actually tried this, it's just my interpretation ...

I should think it would work. Generating race conditions is trivially easy
if you're doing it on purpose. Standard for anyone attempting threads for
the first time ;)

> This doesn't shed much light into whether or not _shell scripts_ can be
suid
> root (they can't). Note that you can set the suid bit on a shell script
it's
> just that it has no effect.

Yes, accepted. Surely, though, it would be *very* easy to generate a secure
shell solution? All that is required is to persist the symlink information -
i.e., storing the name of the file it points at? Kind of like a photo:
kernel init is invoked, takes snapshot of current info (probably
atomically), and then does it's business. Then it doesn't matter if the
symlink is moved, that doesn't change the stored information. Obviously, I
know nothing of how the loading is ordered, but I can't believe it's beyond
the wit of man to come up with a more workable solution ;)

Cheers,

Alex.

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