Inconsistency between os.getgroups and os.system('groups') after os.setgroups()

[Ben Finney]

jeff <3beezer at gmail.com> writes:

> On Sunday, March 25, 2012 4:04:55 PM UTC-6, Heiko Wundram wrote:
> > Am 25.03.2012 23:32, schrieb jeff:
> > > but I have to be able to get back to root privilege so I can't use
> > > setgid and setuid.
> > 
> > Simply not possible (i.e., you can't drop root privileges, be it by 
> > setuid()/setgid() or removing yourself from groups with setgroups()), 
> > and later reacquire them _in the same process_. See the discussion of 
> > how to implement privilege separation at
> > 
> > http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/ssh/privsep.html
>
> os.system("su -m <unprivileged_user> -c '<command string>'")
>
> seems to do the trick.

Yes, because ‘os.system’ explicitly starts a new process.

It can't be done in the same process, as Heiko correctly said.

-- 
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Ben Finney