Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:17:02 -0800 (PST) To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Cc: openssh-unix-dev@mindrot.org Subject: login.conf MAIL environment weirdness solved
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A while back, I posted to the freebsd-questions list about a problem I was having getting custom MAIL environment variable settings in /etc/login.conf to take. Something had happened between FreeBSD 3.3 and 4.2 that caused MAIL to always be set to /var/mail/$USER. It turns out this was a problem with the sshd configuration. The problem was apparently related to the fact OpenSSH's sshd is now configured by default with "UseLogin no", meaning it will not invoke the system's login(1) after authentication. I changed this to "UseLogin yes" and sent a HUP signal to sshd, and all is well; MAIL is now whatever I set it to in /etc/login.conf (and /etc/login.conf.db). The version of OpenSSH that comes with FreeBSD 4.2, if "UseLogin no" is set or is undefined, will seem to process *other* environment variables defined in /etc/login.conf, but always leaves MAIL as the default value which is compiled into sshd. This was very a confusing situation and made the problem difficult to diagnose. More recent snapshots of OpenSSH do not seem to acknowledge environment changes in /etc/login.conf at all, when UseLogin was no. So like I said, the solution was "UseLogin yes" in sshd_config. Now I have some questions: 1. What risks are there in having "UseLogin yes"? 2. Is the current sshd behaving as intended (not doing anything to cause /etc/login.conf.db to be processed at all)? 3. Why was the older version picking up the login.conf environment settings, aside from MAIL, even if "UseLogin no" was set? - Mike ________________________________________________________________________ Mike Brown / Hyperreal | Hyperreal http://music.hyperreal.org/ PO Box 61334 | XML & XSL http://skew.org/xml/ Denver CO 80206-8334 USA | personal http://www.hyperreal.org/~mike/ ----- End of forwarded message (env-from mike) ----- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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