UNIXPC uucp problem

[Chris Siebenmann]

In article <103 at cjsa.UUCP> jeff at cjsa.UUCP (C. Jeffery Small) writes:
...
>I had this very problem when I first set up USENET software.  I believe
>the problem has to do with the way uucp, nuucp, etc. entries appear and
>are parsed in the passwd file.  I believe that your problem will go away
>(and your security increased) if you make seperate password entries with
>unique uids for each machine that you wish to allow to dial in.  

 Actually, all uucp dialins have to share the same UID as 'uucp'. If
they don't, connections fail with a very obscure error message (I
believe 'BAD LOGIN/MACHINE NAME' again) -- I got bitten by this when I
first set up the uucp logins on ziebmef.

 In hindsight, this makes sense; it means that people can't just
invoke uucico from their own accounts and pretend to be some random
machine. Instead you somehow have to set your uid to the 'uucp' UID.
Could have been worse, I suppose; they could have hardcoded the uucp
UID into uucico instead of looking it up in /etc/passwd.

-- 
	You're a prisoner of the dark sky/The propeller blades are still
	And the evil eye of the hurricane's/Coming in for the kill
Chris Siebenmann		uunet!utgpu!{ontmoh!moore,ncrcan}!ziebmef!cks
cks at ziebmef.UUCP	     or	.....!utgpu!{,ontmoh!,ncrcan!brambo!}cks