permissions on /var keep changing

From: Mark Scarborough <mscar-osf_at_cactus.org>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 13:32:47 -0500

I've got a strange problem that is affecting Sendmail.

(AS8400, T64 v5.1 PK2)

Periodically (twice in the last week alone), the 'group' permissions on '/var' get
changed from r-x to rwx. This has the effect of breaking Sendmail because it thinks the
directory is now "unsafe".

Sendmail's behavior is well documented. I don't have a problem with that.

I'm trying to figure out how the permissions are getting changed in the first place.
I've found references in the archives about /var's permissions but they all seem to
relate to it getting changed at boot-time. On this system, /var gets changed _while the
system is running_. The box hasn't been booted for 3 weeks (and usually goes 4-6 months).

I've checked all the crontabs and /etc/inittab for jobs that might be messing with it,
but I haven't found anything.

I could set a cron job to run periodically to check the permissions and fix them if
needed, but that is really ugly and this box is _way_ CPU bound as it is.

Anybody have a clue as to what's going on?

Thanks in advance.


-- 
Mark Scarborough
Lead Unix Admin
Broadwing Communications
Mark.Scarborough_at_broadwing.com	(mailto:Mark.Scarborough_at_broadwing.com)
Received on Wed Jul 18 2001 - 18:34:16 NZST

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