[braindamaged?] use of access(2)

[Chris Torek]

In article <311 at dcc1.UUCP> douglas at dcc1.UUCP (Douglas B. Jones) writes:
>There has been some talk about the access(2) only working on the real
>uid/gid pair. Two alternate possibilites:
>
>1) have a saccess(2) which will check against setuid/setgid ....
>2) have another routine, call it faccess(2) ...
>
>	ret = faccess(file_path,uid,gid);

The whole concept of an `access' system call is a bit goofy, because
it does not account for external events.  Consider, e.g.,

time	/* prog1 */			time	/* prog2 */
t=0	compute();			t=1	status = access(path,...);
t=2	mv(path, newname);		t=3	if (status == OK)
							operation(path);

prog2 has carefully verified the operation before performing it, yet
it goes awry anyway.  Since access() exists for `security' purposes,
but does not fulfill them, it should be reconsidered and probably
removed entirely.

Now, if you want a 99% solution for non-secure programs, that is
another matter entirely....  In most cases it is best to attempt the
operation anyway, and see whether it worked, but a 99% `test this out
now' call could be useful.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris