Debian bug report logs - #1560 `su' produces incomplete log entries when not in ordinary session Package: shellutils ; Reported by: Ian Jackson ; 24 days old. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message received at debian-bugs: From cus.cam.ac.uk!iwj10 Sat Oct 7 10:37:00 1995 Return-Path: Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0t1dBE-000HtBC; Sat, 7 Oct 95 10:37 PDT Received: from bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk by pixar.com with SMTP id AA02134 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sat, 7 Oct 1995 10:36:37 -0700 Received: by bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk (Smail-3.1.29.0 #36) id m0t1dB9-000BzQC; Sat, 7 Oct 95 18:36 BST Received: by chiark id (Debian /\oo/\ Smail3.1.29.1 #29.33); Sat, 7 Oct 95 17:50 BST Message-Id: Date: Sat, 7 Oct 95 17:50 BST From: Ian Jackson To: Debian bugs submission address Subject: `su' produces incomplete log entries when not in ordinary session 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Acknowledgement sent to Ian Jackson : New bug report received and forwarded. Full text available. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Report forwarded to debian-devel@pixar.com : Bug#1560 ; Package shellutils . Full text available. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ian Jackson / iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk , with the debian-bugs tracking mechanism This page last modified 07:43:01 GMT Wed 01 Nov