Re: misc/42237: /dev/null permission issues

[David Holland <dholland-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR misc/42237; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: David Holland <dholland-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: misc-bug-people%netbsd.org@localhost, gnats-admin%netbsd.org@localhost,
        netbsd-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Subject: Re: misc/42237: /dev/null permission issues
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:14:45 +0000

 On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 02:10:01PM +0000, mr.qweo%gmail.com@localhost wrote:
  > There are strange issues with /dev/null access permissions in a
  > fresh installation of NetBSD/amd64. First, these (permissions) are
  > nowhere near persistent even through I'm not using RAM-based file
  > systems and there's no dynamic device node management in NetBSD
  > altogether. Moreover, strange things (appear to?) happen: it looks
  > like /dev/null permissions are being changed along the way (one day
  > I found /dev/null it belonging to my primary group rather than to
  > wheel, and I was nowhere near to claiming such kind authority over
  > it :-) ). There were some other things like this, but since I'm
  > unable to reproduce these, as well as the aforementioned situation,
  > I wouldn't insist on their existence (at least as bugs of NetBSD
  > and not my own :-) ), but I'm all too well able to reproduce
  > continuous re-setting of /dev/null permissions (to 0600, root:wheel
  > if you're interested), so let's focus on it.
 
 I have seen this (or something very like it) and it was caused by
 this:
 
 lrwx------  1 dholland  notmp    9 Oct 27 10:16 .lesshst -> /dev/null
 
 in the home directory of a user with root access. (root's home
 directory probably "works" too.)
 
 -- 
 David A. Holland
 dholland%netbsd.org@localhost