aout programs cannot get users' password entries
Problem!
A couple of programs that are still aout on my system suddenly
began to have problems getting a normal user's password entry.
I wish I new _exactly_ when the problems started to occur, but
I can't really say. Within the last two weeks I would say.
My system has all the latest debian packages from unstable. I
am currently using a 1.3.88 kernel. I have also tried the
1.3.96 kernel and the 1.2.13 kernel. (I love being able to
keep a whole bunch of image-x.x.x-x.deb files around. I just
pop them in and out like CDs!)
Examples:
1) I have super (like sudo) that I compiled myself before I
made the transition to elf. When I run super it reads
/etc/passwd, develops an error, and reports:
super: approve(): Couldn't get your password entry:
I could recompile this for elf, but I need to go and get
the source again.
2) Netscape2.0 and Atlas-beta are unable to send mail. When
I run it as root, all is well. This is true of super as well.
Running strace, I discovered that netscape checks tries to
read from the password file in order to find out your user
name so that it can provide a true "Sender: " to smail.
I have already checked for permission problems all over the
place. It appears that an interface has changed in the aout
libs. Possible?
--
Jeff Ebert
ebert@pobox.com
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