Autzoo.1055
net.v7bugs
utzoo!henry
Sun Oct 25 00:49:57 1981
signals vs uids
Standard V7 lets signals through to a process only if the effective uid
matches. Problem: one sometimes needs to kill a setuid process one
has started. No way. There are two relevant considerations:
1. Clearly, if you start it, you should be able to stop it.
2. Equally clearly, one reason a setuid program goes setuid is to diddle
a privileged database. Killing passwd(1) in the middle of an
update to /etc/passwd is a poor idea.
Consideration #2 means you cannot just test both real and effective uids.
Privileged updates can get arbitrarily complex, and there is no general
way for the kernel to tell whether a process is doing one.
Proposal: a signal is transmitted if the effective uids match, or if the
real uids match AND THE SIGNAL IS BEING CAUGHT. This solves the problem
by letting signals through to setuid processes only if the process is
explicitly prepared for them. Comments?
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