su and/or ksh change history file's group and ownership

[DoN Nichols]

In article <1991Feb12.055727.23183 at ms.uky.edu> amir at s.ms.uky.edu (Amir Sadr) writes:
>I've just noticed that during Ksh, becoming super user via /bin/su will
>change the owner and group ID of $HISTFILE (in my case $HOME/.kshistory)
>to root.  Once I become a regular user again, the group and owner ID of the
>history file however remain as root.  This will, I assume, force Ksh to keep
>a history of my session in core (since I can still walk through my commands).
>But once I terminate Ksh and restart another one, not only the commands
>issued after su are lost, but the new Ksh no longer has permission to
>write to $HISTFILE.  And thus even though no error or warning message is
>given, any recorded history is lost once a Ksh session is terminated.  
>
   [...]
>
>Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon, or is it just me doing something
>wrong?  I am running version 3.51m and I'd be interested to hear if others
>have experienced the same?  I can't recall, but I think a new Ksh was 
>delivered as part of 3.51m upgrade.  Did the 3.51a version do this too?
>I hadn't noticed this then?  Can this some how be patched?  Thank you-

	Yes, it happened to me, too!  I had given up using su(1), and just
logged out and back in when needing root powers.  This was with the new ksh
from the fixdisk2.0.  I had been having problems with some code failing in
some Cnews scripts unless run under sh(1).  I had read mention recently of
the ksh on osu-cis being the better one to use for the unix-pc, so I snarfed
it.  (KSH+IN.Z) Not only did it execute the Cnews code properly, but it also
didn't give the ownership change of .kshistory.  I had been trying to post
the very question you posted just after installing Cnews, and the system
kept rejecting my articles because 'comp.sys.3b1' wasn't in the active file
(when I KNEW it was there - I had PUT it there :-).  By the time I generated
a workaround for the Cnews problem, I had more pressing things to post
about.  After getting the new ksh from osu-cis, and verifying that it fixed
the Cnews problem, I tried the su, just for fun, and was overjoyed to find
that problem fixed.

	If you have ftp access through some system at work or whatever, ftp
to 'cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu' (128.146.8.62), set binary mode, and 
'get ~/pub/att7300/STORE/KSH+IN.Z'.  It comes with documentation which
assumes that you'll be installing it as '/bin/sh'.  I have found no need to
do that, since everything for which I wish to use it, lets me specify the
login shell as '/bin/ksh' with no problems. (I'm running 3.51m).

	Good Luck
		DoN.

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Donald Nichols (DoN.)		| Voice (Days):	(703) 664-1585
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