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Aucbvax.4478 fa.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards Thu Oct 15 23:45:30 1981 setuid and access >From CSL.JLH.MOGUL@SU-SCORE Thu Oct 15 21:26:06 1981 To add another tangent to this whole discussion, I would like to see a new flavor of access(2), e.g.,

accessU(name, mode, newuid) /* the name is negotiable */

which works just like access(), except that it is interpreted as "if I were to setuid(newuid), what would access(name,mode) return?" The application I have in mind is a network file server that runs as root (so that it can access all files), but (after doing password validation) wants to allow only "proper" access. We don't want to do forks all over the place (for complex reasons which I cannot defend here), and so we are stuck (we've got a solution, but it is grossly inefficient.) An "unsetuid()" to return to root access rights would suffice, but the new flavor of access more directly expresses our intent.

Has anyone done something like this? Comments? -------

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