Bug#206843: About your bug: "ktalkd does not work correctly when run under user nobody" on the Debian BTS

[Tomas Hoger <thoger@pobox.sk>]

merge 386334
thanks


Hi Ana!

On Fri, Jan 12, 2007 at 02:02:30PM +0100, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> You filed the bug
>  #206843 "ktalkd does not work correctly when run under user nobody"
> some time ago, you can read the bug report at:
> http://bugs.debian.org/206843

I have not been using ktalkd for several years now and I do not have
Debian Etch / Sid machine to test at the moment.

I only had opportunity to test on the Ubuntu Edgy machine with KDE 3.5.5.
Tests show same results as I described in my original post.  When ktalkd is
started as root, it works as expected, however it's probably not best idea
from security point of view (and that's the reason why it is configured to
run under nobody by default, as was requested in #147762).  When ktalkd is
run as nobody, it's only possible to leave message on answering machine.

Therefore, I assume problem has not been fixed (or worked on) upstream.
I'm not sure if upstream ever intended to make it usable under non-root
user.  Debian changelog does not mention any Debian-specific fix either and
latest Debian version (3.5.5-4) still runs ktalkd as nobody according to
postinst.

Few other Debian bugs have been filed for this issue after my report:

#354073, for version 4:3.3.2-5
  closed by Christopher Martin claiming it's no longer present in 4:3.5.1-2

#386334, for version 4:3.5.4-2
  provides more detailed info, with relevant error messages from log


Btw: Reading Debian changelog I've noticed there's been switch from nobody
to root in 4:2.1.1-3 and then back to nobody in 4:3.1.2-1.

I'm merging this bug with already mentioned #386334.

Regards,

th.