No subject

[utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards]

>From decvax!utzoo!henry at Berkeley Tue Sep 15 15:24:25 1981
re /usr/spool/mail/root trick:

Writing on a setuid file does not shut off the setuid bits in a standard
V7.  Nor does chowning it.  Neither change is hard, but it's not clear 
to me that it's worth being incompatible with the rest of the world, when
the /usr/spool/mail/root problem really arises from another cause entirely.
The real moral of the story is that setuid programs like mail should be
careful about doing chowns.  We have modified V7 mail (for other reasons
entirely, actually) so that it does the chown only if the file did not
exist before mail fopened it.

						Henry Spencer
						ucbvax!decvax!utzoo!henry