socket -> UID

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <832 at unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de>, hessmann at unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de
(Georg Hessmann) writes:
> [How can a program at one end of an Internet socket find out what the UID and
>  GID of the process at the other end of the socket are?]

  (I speak from experience with BSD4.3; I don't know if what I say below
is wrong for other versions of Unix, although I very much doubt that it is.)

  This can't be done.  An Internet domain socket doesn't have any UID or GID
information associated with it; Internet domain sockets are not in any
way tied to the Unix operating system -- tcp/ip code, including code to
use sockets as Unix does, exists for any number of different
architectures, including VM/CMS, VMS, and MacOS.

  You are going to have to send the UID and GID over the socket yourself
at some point.

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