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Subject: bin/21395: Periodic is no longer usable by non-root users
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>Number:         21395
>Category:       bin
>Synopsis:       Periodic is no longer usable by non-root users
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Sep 19 01:50:01 PDT 2000
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Mike Meyer
>Release:        FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT i386
>Organization:
Meyer Consulting
>Environment:

	-current as of 9/16, with SMPNG. 

>Description:

	/usr/sbin/periodic writes it's temporary output files to
	/var/run. Not only does this not match the usage of /var/run
	in hier(9), it means that the periodic program can't be used
	by non-root users!

	Further, the default output is to send email to root. This
	makes it nearly useless for non-root users.

>How-To-Repeat:

	Create a periodic directory for some non-root user (in my
	case, the postgresql superuser was doing daily db maintenance
	with it). Then, as the appropriate user, invoke the periodic
	program on that directory. Note that you get no output with
	the default output setup.

	So change the setting of the _output variables to $USER in
	/etc/periodic.conf. Run periodic again. Notice that it now
	complains about not being able to create
	/var/run/periodic.#### for each file in the directory.

>Fix:

	Change the value of tmp_output in /usr/sbin/periodic from
	/var/run/periodic.$$ to /tmp/periodic.$$

	Change the value of three _output variables in
	/etc/defaults/periodic.conf to $USER. I have not tested this
	in /etc/defaults, but it does work in /etc/periodic.conf.


	


>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:


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