SCO 386 rsh problem

[Ross Oliver]

In article <390 at ubbs-nh.MV.COM> noel at ubbs-nh.MV.COM (N. Del More) writes:
>I've a need to restrict access to certain portions of my system, the most
>obvious choice was to use "rsh" as a shell for the users I wished to
>restrict.
>However, SCO has coded "/bin:/usr/bin" as the a default path into the
>shell itself.  Really dumb, the usrs .profile will not over ride the
>default path.

This is not correct.  The rsh(C) manual entry states:

    When invoked with the name -rsh [as is done by /etc/login], rsh
    reads the user's .profile.  It acts as the standard shell while
    doing this....  The restrictions above [i.e. forbidding changes
    to PATH] are enforced after .profile is interpreted.

"/bin:/usr/bin" is the default if PATH is not set in .profile.  However,
if PATH is set in .profile, the path will be correctly restricted.  I
verified on a 2.3.2 system that this is indeed the behavior of rsh.

Ross Oliver
Technical Support
The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.