ulimit

[Stephen J. Friedl]

In article <100455 at sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, plocher%sally at Sun.COM (John Plocher) writes:
< In all this talk about ULIMIT don't forget that there is at least
< one known bug in the AT&T SVr[23] implementation:
< 
< 	% su
< 	password: xxxxxxx
< 	# cp /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.old ; exit
< 	% ulimit 0 ; passwd
<	(type old/new/again password)
< 	% ls -l /etc/passwd*
< 	-rw-r--r--  1 root            0 Apr  3 10:44 /etc/passwd
< 	-rw-r--r--  1 root          439 Apr  3 10:40 /etc/passwd.old

OK so far, we've just trashed the live copy of the password file.

< 	% su
< 	password: xxxxxxx
< 	# cp /etc/passwd.old /etc/passwd

Oops.  su will likely fail here ("su: Unknown id: root") and you may
be stuck in a big way (can't become root, can't restore the file, can't
go to single user mode, etc.).  If you try this, have a root terminal
session on a nearby terminal *before* you start.

     Steve

-- 
Stephen J. Friedl / V-Systems, Inc. / Santa Ana, CA / +1 714 545 6442 
3B2-kind-of-guy   / friedl at vsi.com  / {attmail, uunet, etc}!vsi!friedl

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