Perl security question/RFC

[Madison Kelly]

Kevin Cozens wrote:
> Madison Kelly wrote:
>>   So then, my question is, what is the most secure, *reasonable* way 
>> to let a perl program execute commands as root?
> [snip]
>>   Comments? Suggestions? Problems? Possible weaknesses?
> 
> AFAICR, the majordomo mailing list program was Perl based and required 
> some root priveleges to run. It had a C wrapper that was used to invoke 
> the Perl program.
> 
> I would suggest you get a copy of majordomo and see what it did to let 
> you run the Perl program with higher priveleges.
> 

Since I posted this I have settled on using a C-wrapper, as well. What I 
do is, during the install, edit the C source to specify the perl file to 
execute by full path and pass any arguments it receives on to the 
called-perl script.

Maybe I can ask now, with the thread back to life, how could I have C 
check the ownership/permissions of the script to make sure it is not 
world-writable (to avoid tampering with the perl script) and have it die 
if so?

BTW, I got the C-code from 'perlsec'. :)

Madi
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