Re: [PATCH] gnu: aegis: New variable.

[Ludovic Courtès]

John Darrington <address@hidden> skribis:

> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 05:00:40PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>      
>      The package itself cannot install things setuid (nothing can be setuid
>      in the store), but there can be setuid programs in the system (see
>      gnu/system.scm.)
>      
> I'm not sure that I understand that.  Maybe you can enlighten me sometime.o
>
> Should I add /bin/aegis here: ?
>
> (define %setuid-programs

No.

The package manager itself doesn’t help at all with setuid binaries.  It
just doesn’t handle them.

However, the OS does support it, via the ‘setuid-programs’ field of
‘operating-system’ declaration.  So, if the system administrator of a
machine decides that it’s a good idea to have ‘aegis’ setuid-root, then
they add it to the ‘setuid-programs’ field.

The ‘%setuid-programs’ variable you mention is just for *default* setuid
programs.  We don’t want to add to many of them here, because that
amounts to making installation of those packages compulsory.

HTH,
Ludo’.