On Sat, 21 Sep 2002, Pong wrote:

> ...  because sendmail always runs as
> root so there is a need to drop privs *in every situation* since it's a
> monolithic setuid executable. it's like logging into your box as root then
> su-ing to a normal user for each task.

Sendmail-8.12.X does not run "setuid root" anymore.  For client 
submissions to the mail queue, a new directory 

drwxrwx---  smmsp  smmsp  /var/spool/clientmqueue

is used, owned by user smmsp (uid 25) and group smmsp (gid 25).
Now sendmail runs "setgid smmsp"

-r-xr-sr-x   root  smmsp  /usr/sbin/sendmail

So the security issue connected with sendmail being "setuid root"
is solved.  Sendmail is monolithic, true, but I have a bias in
favor of "old reliables that have been around for a long time
and are still being maintained", like sendmail, just as I have
a bias for Unix/Linux as against Win2K/XP.  

PMana

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