rc.news: checking whether we run as the news user

[Russ Allbery]

Russ Allbery <eagle at eyrie.org> writes:
> Noel Butler <noel.butler at ausics.net> writes:

>> I can run /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd (as its system startup at boot),
>> apachectl, and even httpd itself by hand as root and it starts without
>> the need to su prior to doing so. Inn requires su before its scripts
>> specifically before running those type of files, as your example
>> boot-time startup script shows, so its not actually the same :)

> It wouldn't be hard to drop permissions in innd immediately at the top
> of main() if it discovers that it's run as root instead of just bailing
> out.  It's always hard to figure out the right balance between
> attempting to self-correct (and possibly getting things wrong) versus
> just telling the user something looks wrong and leaving it to them to
> sort out.  But maybe it would be less confusing to just switch to the
> right user if we can.

Oh, wait, we already do this.

So, Noel, are you sure that there's actually a problem with INN here?  I
think it already does exactly what you want it to do.

-- 
Russ Allbery (eagle at eyrie.org)              <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

    Please send questions to the list rather than mailing me directly.
     <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/questions.html> explains why.