Re: What the heck.... Spamass-milt on my work machine

[Derek J. Balling]

On Wednesday, July 9, 2003, at 10:53  AM, Dan Nelson wrote:

> In the last episode (Jul 09), Derek J. Balling said:
> > From my home (working) installation:
> >
> > $ cat /etc/default/spamass-milter
> > OPTIONS="-m -u nobody"
> > $ cat /etc/default/spamassassin
> > ENABLED=1
> > OPTIONS="-c -m 10 -D"
> >
> > From my work (not working) installation:
> >
> > $ cat /etc/default/spamass-milter
> > OPTIONS="-m -u mail"
> > $ cat /etc/default/spamassassin
> > ENABLED=1
> > OPTIONS="-c -m 10 -D"
> >
> >
> > From my work (not working) log file, when it encounters an alias 
> > (e.g.,
> > where address@hidden points to address@hidden):
> >
> > Jul  9 11:32:22 whitechapel spamd[6587]: logmsg: handle_user: unable 
> > to find user 'whois'!
> > Jul  9 11:32:22 whitechapel spamd[6587]: handle_user: unable to find 
> > user 'whois'!
> > Jul  9 11:32:22 whitechapel spamd[6587]: logmsg: Still running as 
> > root: user not specified with -u, not found, or set to root.  Fall 
> > back to nobody.
> > Jul  9 11:32:22 whitechapel spamd[6587]: Still running as root: user 
> > not specified with -u, not found, or set to root.  Fall back to 
> > nobody.
> > Jul  9 11:32:22 whitechapel spamd[6587]: logmsg: fatal: setuid to 
> > nobody failed
> > Jul  9 11:32:22 whitechapel spamd[6587]: fatal: setuid to nobody 
> > failed
>
> Your real problem is spamd's inability to setuid to nobody.
> Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you why it failed

But it shouldn't be trying. Note that the work server installation 
should be trying to setuid to mail, after all, that's what I've 
included in the default/spamass-milter config file.

> > ... and, according to `ps`, it IS running with -u:
>
> ... and spamc was called with "-u whois".  Note the error message says
> "user not specified with -u, not found, or set to root".  You fall in
> the 2nd category.  Do you have a "nobody" user on that system?

address@hidden:~$ getent passwd mail
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/bin/sh
address@hidden:~$ getent passwd nobody
nobody:x:-2:65534:nobody:/home:/bin/sh

The user it SHOULD have setuid to exists, as does the user it tried to.

D