[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#353638: sysvinit: pidof/killall5 ignores pathnames (contrary to the manpage!)

[Christoph Biedl]

Package: sysvinit
Version: 2.86.ds1-1
Severity: important

The manpage for pidof states:

|   When  pidof  is  invoked  with a full pathname to the program it should
|   find the pid of, it is reasonably safe. Otherwise it is  possible that
|   it  returns  pids of running programs that happen to have the same name
|   as the program you#re after but are actually other programs.

Well, that's not correct. 

How to repeat: Create a small program:
--- test.c -------------
int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
    sleep (60);
    return 0;
}
-----------------------
and compile it to the name of an already running program e.g. syslog-ng:
# gcc test.c -o syslog-ng
# ./syslog-ng
and watch the output of
# pidof /sbin/syslog-ng
before you start this program and while it's running.

Appearently pidof ignores the path entirely as I can also test
# pidof /nonexistant/syslog-ng
and still get results.

Severity was set to important as this is not expected behaviour and
might break programs and daemons. FYI, The problem still exists in
etch (2.86.ds1-4).

    Christoph

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 at euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 at euro (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages sysvinit depends on:
ii  coreutils                   5.2.1-2      The GNU core utilities
ii  initscripts                 2.86.ds1-1   Standard scripts needed for bootin
ii  libc6                       2.3.2.ds1-22 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  sysv-rc                     2.86.ds1-1   Standard boot mechanism using syml

-- no debconf information