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: rider <mr.qweo%gmail.com@localhost>
Subject: Re: misc/42237: /dev/null permission issues
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:57:26 +0000

 On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 08:58:38PM +0300, rider wrote:
  > > ?Anyone who makes a symlink point at /dev/null is just asking for big
  > > ?trouble, especially if it is any pathname that could ever be accessed in
  > > ?any way by any privileged process.
  > 
  > So, the correct way to get rid of less(1) history is LESSHISTFILE
  > environment variable setting of "-", but redirecting garbage to the
  > black hole is useful, so the flag is to be set by default indeed.
 
 I have found that the safest way to disable the behavior is to
 mkdir ~/.lesshst. This seems to prevent less from writing anything
 and doesn't cause it to leave a mess behind.
 
 I would argue that the misfeature should be turned off in less, but
 since less is a 3rd-party program this would be expensive from a
 documentation and user-expectations point of view. So it isn't likely
 to happen. If anyone wants it to happen badly enough, ask on
 tech-userlevel.
 
 -- 
 David A. Holland
 dholland%netbsd.org@localhost