set-user-id or set-group-id in Xenix "smail" programs?

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Article #651

#651

From: Marc Moorcroft
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1989 04:48

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Contact runs smail modified for use with Xenix, and in the course of several
system crashes and restorations we've lost the original archive and all of
the source code.

Looking at the mail.log file on our system, I noticed that it had write
permission for everyone.  I took that away and changed the ownership of the
file from "root" to "uucp", which seemed reasonable at the time.  Looking at
it later showed that it was now showing only uucp mail transfers and mail from
root and root-access programs like "LOGIN" and "GETTY".

What I'm wondering is: Should some of the programs installed for smail be
set-user or set-group-id?  I've looked at /usr/bin/smail, /usr/bin/rmail,
/usr/lib/mail/execmail and /usr/lib/mail/execmail.x without seeing a
set-user/group-id bit, but it seems wrong to me to have a log file that anyone
can come along and truncate.

Marc Moorcroft -- entity about the system on Contact

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Message-ID: <1989Sep25.004826.5033@contact.uucp>

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!berner!contact!smarry

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!berner!contact!smarry
From: smarry@contact.uucp (Marc Moorcroft)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: set-user-id or set-group-id in Xenix "smail" programs?
Message-ID: <1989Sep25.004826.5033@contact.uucp>
Date: 25 Sep 89 04:48:25 GMT
Reply-To: smarry@contact.UUCP (Marc Moorcroft)
Distribution: tor
Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada.
Lines: 17