Bug#390349: Bug#388399: FTBFS problems on alpha, mips[el]: Please help debugging
On Sun, Oct 01, 2006 at 14:48 +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
> Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
>
> > Where does the input for the cache come from? If the input is always from a
> > privileged location (i.e., /usr/share, /usr/lib, /etc), then it's possible
> > -- and, I think, vastly preferable -- to have an suid wrapper for mktexmf to
> > manage /var/cache.
> >
> > If the font input comes from user-specified, non-privileged locations, then
> > this can't ever be safely written to a shared location.
>
> The input can come from the current directory, the user's own TEXMF tree
> or any directory specified in the MFINPUTS (etc.) variable.
The output goes to the user's own TEXMF tree, though. If the input comes
from a tree not defined is SYSTEXMF like some private TEXMF tree, then
that tree is used for output as long as it is writable. If not, then the
current directory is used (at least that'ss the way I understand
mktexnam). However, this system isn't all that secure since the user
could easily add the private TEXMF tree to SYSTEXMF. But then, what one
can do with mktex* is rather limited, so the real problem is the write
access, be it global or limited to some group.
cheerio
ralf
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