Subject: Re: gen usr AS root with YP
To: Lloyd Parkes <Lloyd.Parkes@vuw.ac.nz>
From: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 11/19/1996 12:52:21
[ Let's take this to tech-userlevel only, after this message, please.  This is
  not a sparc-specific problem.  --thorpej ]

On Wed, 20 Nov 1996 09:09:22 +1300 
 Lloyd Parkes <Lloyd.Parkes@vuw.ac.nz> wrote:

 > Sounds like a good idea to me, but being able to do this with the root uid 
 > strikes me as asking for trouble. 

After having read this thread, here's the conclusion I've come to:

	- I agree that it's a potentially hazardous situation to allow
	  uid 0 (or gid 0) in passwd file YP inclusions.

	- I hesitate to disallow uid 0 (or gid 0) in the C library, since
	  it's conceivable that someone might actually _want_ to do that
	  (certainly, that's the case with gid 0).

So, given that I don't want to do what I consider breaking the C library, I'll
add a warning to pwd_mkdb to emit a warning to stderr if an inclusion with
uid 0 or gid 0 is encountered.

As my vacation message says, I'm in Pittsburgh doing demos with our facility
at Supercomputing '96.  This implies that I'm not going to have time to
work on it until Moday, probably.  If someone wants to implement that change,
and send me a patch, gosh, that'd be really cool :-)

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939