Question: ZMailer, how it runs

From: James Fifield <fifield@ug.cs.dal.ca>
To: csuite-tech@chebucto.ns.ca
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 16:29:34 -0300
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I'm having great difficulty attempting to even theorize a solution to the problem we're 
having with zmailer and it accessing the .forward file.

Here's the problem:

- User's are able to run the lynxcgi-bin:mail-forward (gforward).
- The mailer does NOT have search or read permissions on the user's home directory.
- Because ZMailer cannot search the directory, it cannot read the .forward that has been 
created there. -
Because it cannot read it, it assumes that it does not exist, and proceed's normally. - 
Therefore, mail is not
forwarded, (or filtered). 

I've made a couple attempts at a solution:


 1.Attempt 1

        Synopsis: Modify $CS_ROOT/lynxcgi-bin/mail-forward to set $HOME world searchable 	
	when forwarding is invoked. 
        Result: Working solution, but unacceptable because it leaves user's files 		
	publically readable/browsable. 

 2.Attempt 2 (on frugal)

        Synopsis: Modify CS_ROOT/bin/shell to set umask from 022 to 077.
        Modify CS_ROOT/lynxcgi-bin/mail-forward to chmod 644 .forward file when creating 	
	it.
        Modify CS_ROOT/lib/newacct-make to chmod 2751 the user's home directory.
        Result: Some problems occur, here's some of them
        User's Profile.html is created mode 644.
        $CS_ROOT/bin/shell takes care of the public_html not being 755, but any files 		
	created in that directory are not world readable. 

----------------

I think that if the previous problem with building and installing zmailer is truely 
resolved, and we can find a work-around or solution to the problem detailed about, I at 
least would be confident enough to call a new release Beta 2.0.

One of things I am finding is blocking me from progressing on this problem is that I do 
not know what works on CCN.  As far as I can tell, the zmailer runs as root.  If this is 
true, it doesn't seem like a very good solution, (at least it's one I'd like to avoid).

If anyone has suggestions or questions, please forward them to me!

--

James Fifield
<fifield@ug.cs.dal.ca>

CSuite Technical Staff


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