On Thu, 19 Dec 1996, Niels Provos wrote:
> We are runnin exim-1.59 on AIX 3.2.5 and having some problems on how
> the user nobody is handled on AIX:
> nobody:!:4294967294:4294967294::/:
Oh dear. I had heard there was a problem with "nobody" on AIX, but I
hadn't done anything about it yet because it requires a lot of reworking
of Exim's design and because nobody seemed to be seriously suffering.
The README file in the Exim distribution says
******* IMPORTANT FOR AIX USERS ******
Exim doesn't currently support negative uids or gids, and the AIX "nobody"
uid is negative, and so cannot be used.
Unfortunately, I have no access to an AIX system. I looked at the man
pages for many systems I do have access to (BSD systems, Solaris, Linux,
and others) and they all say that a uid is a *positive* integer. For
example, on SunOS5 it states
Real User ID and Real Group ID
Each user allowed on the system is identified by a positive
integer (0 to MAXUID) called a real user ID.
So I assumed that was true for all Unix, and used a negative value to
mean "not set" in the various options that refer to uids.
To remedy this situation requires the allocation of another variable
wherever a uid is stored, in order to provide a set/not-set bit. This is
why it is a fair amount of work. I will see if I can give it some priority.
--
Philip Hazel University Computing Service,
ph10@??? New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
P.Hazel@??? England. Phone: +44 1223 334714
