[Mailman-Developers] strange behavior with EXTERNAL_PUBLIC_ARCHIVER

[J C Lawrence]

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 18:16:55 +0200 
Jonas Meurer <jonas at freesources.org> wrote:

> why does user list member different lists in the two cases? same uid,
> same gid, only the lists it members are different.

Because Mailman is run by a server which was started as root and which
then setuid'ed down to a lower privilege level.

You need to fully understand how Unix UIDs are managed for processes.  I
recommend any of the standard security tracts on why services that run
as root and then setuid to something less privileged are less secure
than those that start at the lower security setting.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.