Subject: Re: minor problem with guestgroup

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 10:21:17 -0500 (EST)

Michael Douglass wrote:
> This user's home dir is '/web/www/htdocs/users/./t/test'.  Everything work
> as designed--except for this one command--seems it's trying to use the
> wrong side of the /./ for ~. :)
 
> ncftp>cd ~
> /web/www/htdocs/users: No such file or directory.

It sounds like the HOME enviroment variable is not begin set to the correct
directory in wu-ftpd.

Bill Sebok      Computer Software Manager, Univ. of Maryland, Astronomy
	Internet: [email-masked]	URL: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~wls/

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From: "Oliver Stoll" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 16:46:45 +0100

>With '/' (in my case) for home directories, cd ~ gives the error
>'/home/users/lundberg does not exist .. it doesn't in the chroot
>environment so cd ~ must be using the real /etc/passwd.  
>  It appears there's confusion in the driver about
>when to use which /etc/passwd for home directory searches and for ~<user>
>lookups.
>

A test on my system also had the result that the path entry in the
chrooted ./etc/passwd is not being consulted, but the one in
/etc/passwd mis-interpreted instead.

Oliver

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From: "Oliver Stoll" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 16:48:58 +0100

>It sounds like the HOME enviroment variable is not begin set to the correct

Looks like it. Even more like that, I wouldn't want a user to be able to find
out where the chrooted environment is. This interpretation of "cd ~" gives
way to that which is a reason to call for a fix alone.

Oliver

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From: [email-masked] (Alan J Rosenthal)
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 10:54:13 -0500

"Oliver Stoll" <[email-masked]> writes:
>Even more like that, I wouldn't want a user to be able to find

Good point.  If someone makes this fix, they should also do it for anonymous
ftp, which currently can be made to yield this data too.  (In anonymous ftp,
perhaps "~" is always "/".. but it yields the chroot target currently.)

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From: "Oliver Stoll" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 17:17:26 +0100

>Now, as to your problem, I'm doing something of the same thing.  Here's
>my passwd entries.
>
>/etc/passwd:
>    alex:<crypted word here>:2111:999:alex
>FTP:/usr/ftpsite/./pub/uploads/users/alex:/dev/nul
>
>/usr/ftpsite/etc/passwd:
>    alex:x:2111:999:
>
>When alex logs in, he's sitting in the real dir
>"/usr/ftpsite/pub/uploads/users/alex".  cd'ing to "/" gets him to
>"/usr/ftpsite".  Everything seems to be working just fine.  I'm running
>beta-15, BTW

That's working fine so far. What we're interested in, is if you manage to
get the user to .../alex via typing "cd ~" after you log in that user
via ftp. We argue that neither does wu-ftp interpret the part after the
/./ in /etc/passwd as home, nor does it consult the etc/passwd in the
chrooted environment.

Oliver