Re: Intent to package runas...

["Stephen J. Carpenter" <sjc@delphi.com>]

On Tue, Sep 08, 1998 at 08:26:05AM -0500, Nathan E Norman wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, Philippe Troin wrote:
> 
>  : Michael Bramer wrote:
>  : 
>  : > Hello
>  : >
>  : > From the Readme:
>  : > #         Runas is a program that allows the super-user to run a program as if
>  : > # an ordinary user ran it. There are two main uses for runas, and both relate
>  : > # to security.
>  : > #
>  : > #         One is to allow the super-user to execute a binary given by an
>  : > # un-trusted user. Suppose the program is /usr/smith/program. The super-user
>  : > # simply creates a dummy account, say one called 'nobody' which doesn't have
>  : > # sufficient privileges to do any harm (the account needn't have login
>  : > # capability). The super-user can then do:
>  : > #
>  : > # 'runas nobody /usr/smith/program'
>  : 
>  : Out of my head, this is a runas clone:
>  :     #!/bin/sh
>  :     user=$1
>  :     shift
>  :     exec su -c "'$@'" $user
> 
> Or, `sudo -u user "command"'

or to make it even more of a clone...

alias runas='sudo -u'

Still though...I don't see any reason NOT to have runas as a package...
just gives us more choices :) ..not everyone likes having sudo installed...or
using su...

Someone thought it was a big enough need to write runas :)

-Steve
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