[20541] in bugtraq
Re: Announcing ptyfix
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Casper Dik)
Thu May 3 09:38:53 2001
Message-ID: <200105021641.SAA06418@romulus.Holland.Sun.COM>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 18:41:01 +0200
Reply-To: Casper Dik <Casper.Dik@SUN.COM>
From: Casper Dik <Casper.Dik@SUN.COM>
X-To: Florian Weimer <Florian.Weimer@RUS.UNI-STUTTGART.DE>
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 02 May 2001 10:43:47 +0200."
<tgoftcgmyk.fsf@mercury.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>
>Paul Szabo <psz@MATHS.USYD.EDU.AU> writes:
>
>> The privileged (setuid root) command ptyfix is used from within executables
>> that use the openpty() call. An example is xterm: with this helper, xterm
>> itself does not need to be setuid.
>
>The correct fix is to implement SysV-style PTYs. I think they are
>required by SuSv2 as well. Only some BSD systems do not provide this
>kind of PTYs, almost all other flavors do.
>
>> Currently ptyfix works only on Compaq Tru64 UNIX (DEC OSF/1) machines.
>
>The helper application is not required, you should open /dev/ptmx or
>/dev/ptmx_bsd and use grantpt() and unlockpt(). (The True64 5.1
>manpage suggests that openpty() already uses SysV PTYs, but that's not
>mentioned in earlier versions, such as DIGITAL UNIX 4.0D.)
Of The SysV style-ptys do generally use a helper applications.
(Typically, it's /usr/lib/pt_chmod)
Casper
