>>>>> On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 14:50:21 +0200, Thomas Anders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
>>>>> said:

Thomas> once in a while users report problem with exec/extend and scripts, like 
Thomas> in recent bug #1178915:

Thomas> http://sf.net/support/tracker.php?aid=1178915

Thomas> Wes has closed this one mentioning the workaround/fix of using "exec 
Thomas> /path/to/shell /path/to/script ...". However, I don't find this 
Thomas> behaviour documented. Am I missing something?

Thomas> What directives (exec/extend/traphandle/...?) and 5.x lines are 
Thomas> affected? I really think this should be either documented or fixed.

It was documented at one point, I'm 99% sure (but I've been wrong
about being 99% sure about 99% of the time).  Specifically, there used
to be 2 directives "exec" and "sh".  The difference between them was
that exec was calling exec() and shell was calling system().  There
have always been a large number of people that felt that exec() was
more secure than system() since it was more direct in making you be
sure to know what you were doing.  IE, system environment, paths, etc
didn't possibly convince you to run the "wrong thing".  Thus, for
security purposes, I implemented both exec and system calls a long
long time ago (possibly even pre ucd-snmp).  I separated them out so
that you could pick and choose between them as your security needs saw
fit.  exec(), however and intentionally, will not execute shell
scripts and must point at a real binary.  Thus you had to specify the
path to the shell script that you really wanted it to run under (in a
similar vein (but not identical) in the way that cron always runs
scripts under sh).  The "sh" directive, however, would operate like
the above.

You're right, however, that this behavior should be documented.
-- 
Wes Hardaker
Sparta, Inc.


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