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Date:      Fri, 08 Aug 1997 14:21:27 +1000
From:      David Nugent <davidn@labs.usn.blaze.net.au>
To:        Tom Samplonius <tom@sdf.com>
Cc:        Alan Batie <batie@aahz.jf.intel.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: login classes 
Message-ID:  <199708080421.OAA00454@labs.usn.blaze.net.au>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 07 Aug 1997 18:55:59 MST." <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970807185140.24596A-100000@misery.sdf.com> 

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>  > I don't see why this is necessary. Increase resources in your *daemon*
>  > class since that's what applies here. The user's resources aren't
>  > involved except when it comes to counting resource use for that user.
>  
>  Will this actually work?

Yes. Daemon is the default class used by init. Unless specifically 
modified,
anything started by init (which is almost everything) inherits resources
of the daemon class since that's how /etc/rc and friends are started.

>  Since daemon hasn't logged in, or been
>  executed by something that can set the resource limits?

You're confusing logins with login classes, I think. :-)

>  Also, the issue here is that Alan probably wants smsh NOT to have the
>  limits of daemon, but of that user.  Lot of users screw up, and put junk
>  in their .forward file, and when they get mail they end of chewing up CPU,
>  and/or RAM.

Hmm. Then there's the other tack that mail delivery will unnecessarily
fail because user resources are generally lower than the daemon class.

I may have to revisit this one, I think. Technically this makes .forward
a "security hole" which a user could exploit to gain more resources, but
with smrsh in particular, the administrator already has some fairly
direct control on what can and cannot be run from .forward files, so this
"flaw" is a noop. But it isn't like the administrator doesn't already have
some control, since there's the daemon class fallback, or sendmail could
be started using limits(1) to set more appropriate limits for mail
delivery (globally). Perhaps /etc/rc.conf should be modified to contain
a $sendmail_command variable as well, which would better facilitate this
(and alternative mailer daemons as well).

There are arguments both ways. Personally I rely on the current behaviour,
as procmail in particular tends to consume a lot of memory with large
messages; more memory than I allow for shell users.

The only other area I am aware of where there is a 'hole' is at(1),
which is on the todo list. Other things keep cropping up and get
higher on the list. :)

Regards,
David





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