sendmail, /etc/aliases command, what's supposed to happen?

[Shamus McBride]

The situation:

    SUN OS 4.0.3

    /etc/aliases contains the command:
	mlist:kae,slm,"|/wsc-sun2/local/ml/mlist-l-saver"

    When mail is received for "mlist", sendmail forks and runs
    mlist-l-saver. The mlist-l-saver process runs as uid=daemon,
    gid=daemon (normally). 

    However, when the received mail was sent from the host machine
    (wsc-sun), the user-id and group-id of the forked command process
    are set to the user-id and group-id of the sender rather than
    daemon. This happens even when the mail has left the local net and
    gone to a mail reflector at Berkeley and then come back!
    
The question:

    Is this the way it's supposed to work?  Given a "command" as the
    destination of an address in /etc/aliases, under what user-id,
    group-id should the command process run?


Shamus Mc Bride           | slm at wsc-sun.boeing.com      
Boeing Computer Services  | slm%wsc-sun at atc.boeing.com
(206) 865-5047            | uw-beaver!bcsaic!wsc-sun!slm
DISCLAIMER:opinions are mine alone, not necessarily those of The Boeing Company.
-- 
Shamus Mc Bride           | slm at wsc-sun.boeing.com      
Boeing Computer Services  | slm%wsc-sun at atc.boeing.com
(206) 865-5047            | uw-beaver!bcsaic!wsc-sun!slm
DISCLAIMER:opinions are mine alone, not necessarily those of The Boeing Company.