RE: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

RE: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

[Heribert Dahms]

Hi Richard,

if it's that important for your company's project
(that you work like me 50% of each 25h day 8-)
why don't you pay Red Hat per hour or day,
so Corinna or Chris work for you in their prime time?

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Troy [mailto:rtroy@sciencetools.com]
Sent: Donnerstag, 18. April 2002 17:45
To: Corinna Vinschen
Subject: Re: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit


[Heribert] [snip]
You may operate under the assumption that it's left-over minutes in the
day that are being applied, and you're probably right for most everyone
else.  However, that's not what I'm proposing. If I attempt this, it will
be "during my work day", which, at the present time, comprises about 5AM
to midnight every day, including weekends and most holidays - aren't
startup companies fun? -wink- ...I need this other code to run on a
Windows Box (NT/2k and later), and it's a high priority.
[Heribert] [snip]

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RE: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

[Richard Troy]

On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Heribert Dahms wrote:
 
> Hi Richard,
>  
> if it's that important for your company's project
> (that you work like me 50% of each 25h day 8-)
> why don't you pay Red Hat per hour or day, 
> so Corinna or Chris work for you in their prime time?

Hi Heribert,

Yes, that's a reasonable suggestion. I haven't read much of Chris' posts, 
but Corinna has written a lot of posts with 'suid' in them and I've read a 
lot of those. Clearly, she's a sharp cookie, and it would be a privilege 
to have her working on code for me. However, I think she and her present 
management would object to the terms of the employment contract! If she 
got the same deal as I have, she'd have to work 16+ hour work days, every 
day (no weekends, holidays, vacation, sick time), barely any pay, and 
would be expected to write bug-free code! -smile-

Another consideration is feasibility: How close is the code already? And, 
if it's not very close, are there good alternatives for what I want to do?

Please see my next post...

Thanks for your suggestion,
Richard

-- 
Richard Troy, Chief Scientist
Science Tools Corporation 
rtroy@ScienceTools.com, 510-567-9957, http://ScienceTools.com/

On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Heribert Dahms wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Troy [mailto:rtroy@sciencetools.com]
> Sent: Donnerstag, 18. April 2002 17:45
> To: Corinna Vinschen
> Subject: Re: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit
> 
> 
> [Heribert] [snip]
> You may operate under the assumption that it's left-over minutes in the
> day that are being applied, and you're probably right for most everyone
> else.  However, that's not what I'm proposing. If I attempt this, it will
> be "during my work day", which, at the present time, comprises about 5AM
> to midnight every day, including weekends and most holidays - aren't
> startup companies fun? -wink- ...I need this other code to run on a
> Windows Box (NT/2k and later), and it's a high priority.
> [Heribert] [snip]



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Re: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2002 at 08:45:24AM -0700, Richard Troy wrote:
> Not this time, Corinna. A Contribution is a contribution, regardless of
> [...]
> making the decision, "OK, I'll point. Here's where you need to go..."

Sorry, but that's not how it works.  We *want* to discuss everything
public.  This is an OSS project.  Keep it public.  You're getting
exactly as much help as a group of volunteers is willing to give.

Corinna

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Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
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Red Hat, Inc.

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Re: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

[Richard Troy]

> > >   It requires a person with
> > > a lot of time, actually...
> >
> >  And, I have been wondering how I might
> > contribute too, being as over- worked and as busy as I am.
>
> Contribution is something you're doing voluntarily and just
> as far as you're able to.  We all have daytime jobs which
> take more or less time.  If there's energy left a few minutes
> a day... go ahead and contribute.

Not this time, Corinna. A Contribution is a contribution, regardless of
the circumstances of its creation, I submit. I am, personally, interested
in helping, however, if it weren't for the confluence of needs, I would
not even be able to entertain the concept of helping at this time.

You may operate under the assumption that it's left-over minutes in the
day that are being applied, and you're probably right for most everyone
else.  However, that's not what I'm proposing. If I attempt this, it will
be "during my work day", which, at the present time, comprises about 5AM
to midnight every day, including weekends and most holidays - aren't
startup companies fun? -wink- ...I need this other code to run on a
Windows Box (NT/2k and later), and it's a high priority. If the best way
to get it there is to help implement suid in cygwin, then I can justify it
and both cygwin and my work benefit. Since I think my problem would be
solved if only cygwin honored the suid bit, then it may make sense.
Otherwise, I'm off to create a wholly different solution that will
probably not make use of cygwin at all, and in that case, cygwin won't
benefit.

That said, presuming I give it a go, while this is a very high priority,
it doesn't mean I can spend 100% of my time on it until it's done, though
I may spend 8 hours a day on it, perhaps. ...Anyway, this is why I'm
asking for a mentor: Help keep me focused on this problem and not get lost
on dead-ends. Remember I indicated I have no experience programming in
this environment, and it's clear enough I'm not yet fully informed of the
systems internals issues that NT+ pose. Yet some of you are. If you can
point me in the right direction, this could work. Or, you could let me
flail around, spend countless hours reading email archives only to not
find direction, spend countless more reading up on MS topics that don't
really have anything to do with what I'm trying to do - but I don't know
any better - and the project suffers and with it my work. And we both
loose - cygwin looses a potentially very helpful contribution and I loose
potentially very important hours.

Resolving this connundrum is exactly what mentorship is all about: Focus
the newcomer on the important things. If you are - someone is - up for it,
so am I. Keep in mind, I'm offering that huge chunk of that time you said
was required in exchange for only a little time from an experienced member
of the community. I don't understand why you wouldn't encourage such a
"trade."  However, I'm experienced enough to know that you're right when
you say solving the SUID problem will take "a lot of time." Without
someone to draw upon for guidance, I'm not sure I'm ready for the risk of
this tar-baby (time sink). Yes, it's possible to use this e-list for that
purpose, but experience says that's not nearly as effective as someone
making the decision, "OK, I'll point. Here's where you need to go..."

Respectfully yours,
Richard

-- 
Richard Troy, Chief Scientist
Science Tools Corporation
rtroy@ScienceTools.com, 510-567-9957, http://ScienceTools.com/



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RE: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

[Justin MacCarthy]

Hi Richard, a short answer pretty busy, hopes its enough to get you
started...

> Tell me about it, Justin!
> No, Nobody mentioned that!
> How does it work? Is it part of the OS or an add-on?

It's a Win2000 native service , look in services
Description : "Enables starting processes under alternate credentials"

Nearest thing to  sudo (ala Linux) I know of

> Also, can it be ported/made to work on NT?

Might need to use the  CreateProcessWithLogonW
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/appsec.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dllproc/pro
thred_2gl3.asp


> If it only works on W2000, it might not be good enough for my needs...
>

Only works on Win2000 AFAIK , although might in XP etc.

http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q294676&

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/help/windows_security_runas.h
tm

Actually one of those articles mentions XP so.....

> Thanks for your reply,
> Richard
>

> --
> Richard Troy, Chief Scientist
> Science Tools Corporation
> rtroy@ScienceTools.com, 510-567-9957, http://ScienceTools.com/
>
> On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Justin MacCarthy wrote:
>
> > Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:28:25 +0100
> > From: Justin MacCarthy <macarthy@iol.ie>
> > To: Richard Troy <rtroy@sciencetools.com>
> > Subject: RE: cygwin mentors?  Was: bash and the suid bit
> >
> > I haven't followed this tread, but I had a quick look , did
> anyone mention
> > the RunAs service in WIn2000?
> >
> > Might solve your problem ???
> >
> > Justin
> >
>
>
>


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Re: cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2002 at 07:19:09AM -0700, Richard Troy wrote:
> >   It requires a person with
> > a lot of time, actually...
> 
>  And, I have been wondering how I might
> contribute too, being as over- worked and as busy as I am.

Contribution is something you're doing voluntarily and just
as far as you're able to.  We all have daytime jobs which
take more or less time.  If there's energy left a few minutes
a day... go ahead and contribute.

> Anyone want to be a mentor?

Why is it so difficult to get into Cygwin?  Take the sources
try to compile and then change what you think should be changed.
Small changes first, big changes later.  And don't be offended if
a change is rejected.  That's how it worked for me back in 1998
and that's how it works today.

Oh, and take a look onto http://cygwin.com/contrib.html.

Corinna

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Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Developer                                mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com
Red Hat, Inc.

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cygwin mentors? Was: bash and the suid bit

[Richard Troy]

> First of all, it's not bash but the OS (here Cygwin) which would
> have to care for the suid bit.

-smile-

> Second, the suid bit is available with ntsec on NTFS file systems
> but for now it's *only* available as a flag.  It has no effect!

Yes! I have learned this! And I am sad because of it.

> The implementation of suid under Win32 requires a running daemon
> with special permissions (running under SYSTEM account, that is)
> which can start a process under a different user account on behalf
> of the calling process.  The daemon already exists but the suid
> functionality isn't implemented yet.  It requires a person with
> a lot of time, actually...

Yes, I was afraid of that. -frown-

Perhaps this seems a silly place to say so, but I'm very impressed with
the work I've seen in CYGWIN, and in the open community and GNU in
general. In researching this SUID problem, I spent six or eight hours
yesterday reading all the related posts from the archive, and I noticed
how there's a lot of really good work - the internals discussions have
been well written and there are a few of you, like you, Corinna, who are
outstanding contributors... And, I have been wondering how I might
contribute too, being as over- worked and as busy as I am. However, I
_really_ need this - or some solution - working in this environment, so it
seems we have a case of converging needs. I think It makes more sense for
me to help out with suid than it does for me to write a one-off.

... After thinking it over for a bit...

I'm willing to give it a go if someone can mentor me along. My
apprenticeship resume: I started hacking in '77 at the tender age of 14,
so by now I've got a lot of experience. I once wrote a complete real-time,
multi-tasking operating system by myself which is in use today controlling
pipelines and oil refineries, and I used to be one of the top VAX/VMS
internals people at DEC, so this internals experience must be of some use
here, especially since NT/W2k is based on VMS. If someone were to work
with me, point me at the juicy stuff so I don't have to hunt so much, I
can probably commit to this project. Otherwise, I'm concerned it'll take
me too long to ramp up.

Anyone want to be a mentor?

Regards,
Richard

-- 
Richard Troy, Chief Scientist
Science Tools Corporation
rtroy@ScienceTools.com, 510-567-9957, http://ScienceTools.com/




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