Re: Run qmail-pop3d without root

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 11:25:12PM +0200, West wrote:
> Given the answers I guess this is not possible
> 
> But why ?
> 

qmail-pop3d runs not as root. auth_pop will drop priviledges before
running qmail-pop3d. Only qmail-popup and auth_pop will run with root
privs because auth_pop needs them (to change user id and to do passwd
checks against the system password file).
With a bit of hackery it could be possible to run the code as non-root
with only one allowd uid but I'm not sure how many changes to the code are
needed for that.

> 
> 2008/10/15 West <[email protected]>
> 
> > it is possible to run this service whitout root account ?
> >
> > I try with qmaild and vmail, i get : ERR: unable to write pipe.
> >
> > Why ? Because qmail-pop3d need to change to user mailbox  and must have
> > root privilege to do that ?
> >

Btw. the error comes most probably from the fact that qmail-popup trys to
exec auth_pop but auth_pop is installed with strict permissions:
-rwx------  1 root    qmail  317773 Sep  8 21:00 auth_pop
So qmail-popup is not able to run auth_pop and when the user data is sent
over the pipe you get the error you mentioned.

-- 
:wq Claudio