Debian bug report logs - #1560, boring messages

Subject: Bug#1560: `su' produces incomplete log entries when not in ordinary session
Reply-To: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>, debian-bugs@pixar.com
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Date: Sat, 7 Oct 95 17:50 BST
From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: Debian bugs submission address <debian-bugs@pixar.com>

Package: shellutils
Version: 1.12-3

It looks like `su' uses the utmp username field for logging who is
doing the su.  This is broken, because (a) it doesn't work at all if
the process doesn't have a controlling tty and (b) it may give the
wrong answer if utmp is corrupted.

The correct algorithm is to use the utmp username field as a hint: it
should be used if there is a relevant utmp entry and the username in
it has (according to getpwnam) as a uid the ruid of the su process;
otherwise a getpwuid should be done and the name from that used.

Here are some examples of silly log entries:

Sep 15 08:04:53 chiark su: (to news)  on /dev/console
Sep 17 06:42:01 chiark su: (to nobody)  on

Ian.

From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Bug#1560: Acknowledgement (was: `su' produces incomplete log entries when not in ordinary session)
In-Reply-To: <m0t1cS7-0002aLZ@chiark.al.cl.cam.ac.uk>
References: <m0t1cS7-0002aLZ@chiark.al.cl.cam.ac.uk>

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Ian Jackson
(maintainer, debian-bugs)