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Bug 84505 - need doc note about building with correct permissions
need doc note about building with correct permissions
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: libzvt
Classification: Deprecated
Component: general
CVS HEAD
Other other
: Normal minor
: ---
Assigned To: jacob berkman
Unknown User
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2002-06-07 16:44 UTC by Kristian Rietveld
Modified: 2005-01-05 14:21 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Description Kristian Rietveld 2002-06-07 16:44:01 UTC 
gnome-terminal doesn't update the utmp/wtmp records anymore. This was
working fine before. And I've got the option enabled (:

Maybe this is even a libzvt issue. I tried to look at the code, but I'm not
really sure.
Comment 1 Luis Villa 2002-06-07 20:14:00 UTC 
Bug 82904/82905; marking dup of 82904.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 82904 ***
Comment 2 Kristian Rietveld 2002-06-07 20:25:31 UTC 
This bug is not a duplicate of 82904. 82904 is about adding --wtmp and
--nowtmp. This bug is about the utmp/wtmp code not working at
the moment (which it did before).

Reopening.
Comment 3 Luis Villa 2002-06-10 05:19:21 UTC 
Doh.
Comment 4 Hema Seetharamaiah 2002-06-14 15:24:26 UTC 
It is gnome-pty-helper that updates the utmp/wtmp records for
gnome-terminal if the option is enabled.

Since root permissions are needed to update utmp/wtmp files,
gnome-pty-helper is installed as a SUID program in the sbin directory.

The most likely reason for this problem could be just this - that
gnome-pty-helper is not installed as root or the 's' bit isnt set.

I just checked on my linux box. utmp/wtmp updation seems to be working
fine.
Comment 5 Havoc Pennington 2002-06-15 17:06:40 UTC 
Kristian?
Comment 6 Kristian Rietveld 2002-06-15 17:23:54 UTC 
Hmm, so this started happening when I changed the way I build gnome2.
I don't make install as root, so that's why the permissions are messed
up here, as Hema pointed out.

This won't happen with packages, but maybe it's nice to add a warning
somewhere?
Comment 7 Hema Seetharamaiah 2002-06-17 09:22:58 UTC 
IMHO, since this problem is not likely to occur with packages, it may
not be worth patching any component-code for this bug. 

And not clear about the kind of warning that could be given and by
who.

gnome-pty-helper simply HAS to have root perms ( be SUID ) to update
utmp/wtmp records. 

Because, if gnome-pty-helper is not installed as suid, despite being
designed to be so, then that seems like an installation error to me
and not a run-time error deserving user-warnings.
Comment 8 Kristian Rietveld 2002-06-17 16:22:22 UTC 
I think it wouldn't harm to put a notice in the README of libzvt
and/or gnome-terminal saying that gnome-pty-helper needs root permissions.

About the warning, I was thinking of a warning during make install, if
make install is not being run as root. But not everybody may notice
that, especially not when building using build scripts.
Comment 9 Luis Villa 2002-07-02 16:37:13 UTC 
Re-triaging in light of the data. :)
Comment 10 Havoc Pennington 2002-09-22 21:25:58 UTC 
Docs should probably be in vte/libzvt; bounce bug to vte, then libzvt
Comment 11 Nalin Dahyabhai 2002-09-24 19:26:34 UTC 
Note added to gnome-pty-helper/README in vte, not sure where else it
belongs.
Comment 12 Nalin Dahyabhai 2002-11-11 05:51:17 UTC 
Bouncing to libzvt.
Comment 13 Kjartan Maraas 2005-01-05 14:21:12 UTC 
Closing.