[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Re: "telinit -e" can result in unmodifiable vars?

[Dana How]

On 1/4/06, Thomas Hood <jdthood at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I'd like to take up this issue separately:
>
> Dana How wrote:
> > (1) "telinit -e var=" causes var to get stuck permanently in the unset state.
> > I don't like this; seems too special-case and limited-use.
>
> I think that this should be considered a bug.  However, when I read init.c I
> expect "telinit -e var=" to set var to the null string.
>
> Do you observe var getting stuck in the unset state in practice?  If so, can
> you explain why this happens?

Thomas,

I'm really sorry, I wasn't being clear. (1) was one of three proposals to
reduce the security impact of INIT_PROG : I was proposing that
"telinit -e INIT_PROG=" be CHANGED to make INIT_PROG stuck
in the unset state.  So this was proposed behavior, not observed behavior.
In any case, I don't like the proposal. It was just one of three things that
came to me first. Later I realized var= was needed to set var to the null string
(var by itself removes var from the environment).

Thanks,
--
Dana L. How  danahow at gmail.com  +1 650 804 5991 cell