Indeed, research Unix never allowed ordinary users to
change a uid. And even in the first edition, the superuser
was not allowed to do so on set-uid files, presumably to
prevent inadvertent laying of cuckoo eggs. The v6 note
about interaction with accounting reflected field
experience with the overly liberal stance of other Unixes.
non-su chown worked in pwb, if the caller owned the file. code had to be
added then to the system call to strip the setuid/setgid bits if you were
not su, for obvious security reasons. you didnt see that bit stripping
in, say the v6/v7 code.
> From: Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org>
>
> Sorry if this is off-topic but I bet someone here will know.
>
> I recently had a significant surprise when I discovered that on HP-UX ordinary users can still give away files. Various of us who remember fairly old Unixes then sat around trying to remember which systems had this and where it came from: getting it almost entirely wrong, it turns out.
>
> What we remembered was that it came from BSD, but this seems to be entirely wrong. It looks like it originated with System III / V, and perhaps was imported from there into some SunOS (possibly it was in all versions before Solaris?) which is why we remember it as being in BSD. It must have been in some 80s system or we would not remember it. POSIX still allows it but clearly reluctantly.
>
> So the questions are: (a) did it originate in System III or does it go back further than that, and (b) was it in the BSD-derived SunOSes or are we just making that up?
>
> And I guess: who thought this was a good idea?
>
> Thanks
>
> --tim
OK, let me try this one more time with links to get around the
restrictions on the message size.
I was cleaning out my basement and I
found a box of stuff from my office at BRL (where I left in 1987).
Most
of it was buttons I'd picked up at trade shows and SF cons (I had a
fabric partition next to my desk that I had them all stuck to.
Of
course in the box (among a couple of later editions) was Armando's
original UNIX license (note no reference to DEC):
Also in the box were
some buttons from various UNIX conferences. I particularly remember the
Sex, Drugs, and Unix one. Some of you will also remember the year I was
giving out the No Ada shirts. There's a picture of dmr wearing one
floating around somewhere.
Sun was giving out these one year:
Peter
Langston thought this was a little conceited on Bill Joy's part, so the
next show he arrived with buttons to hand out that said things like "The
psl of UNIX" and "The dmr of UNIX". I had a "The ron of UNIX" somewhere
but I couldn't find it in the box.
Finally there was this wooden
nickle courtesy of Bill Yost...
