Problems using the getprpwent (3) function

[Augusto Vinhaes]

Hi !
We have some programmers here that are using the getprpwent (3) function to get user information that are stored on /tcb. The problem is that this function don't return any information. I think this happens due to the /tcb permissions that prevent access to the /tcb/file/auth/... files. What can I do to fix it ?

Regards,
Augusto

[Mark Greene_1 · Accepted solution]

If you are using NIS, there are additional considerations:

From the man page:
"Additionally, all of these routines depend on the configuration of the
Name Service Switch file, /etc/nsswitch.conf. These routines use the
switch for the passwd database."

The other obvious question is the program that does the call running as root? If not, you can try a work-around by setting-up a seperate processes that is SUID root and then running that process from your program. The downside here is that this is a massive security hole, and you need to add security checks to the process to ensure that just anyone cannot running it and thereby hack your tcb.

HTH
mark