Description of problem: The /var/lock directory created by the lockdev RPM has permissions that allow multiple users to attempt access to the same device. This is how I found the problem: 1. login as user A, run minicom modem 2. login as user B on the same machine but on a different terminal, run minicom modem Any device will do however. Actual results: Both user A and user B have access to the modem device in a competitive sort of way Expected results: User B should be denied access. minicom modem for user B should return "operation not permitted" Additional info: I'm not quite sure of my diagnosis, but I do know that when I changed the permissions of /var/lock to 1775 rather than 0775, the problem went away.
The directory /var/lock is write-able for root and group 'lock'. Everyone who can work with locks need to access to locks created by other processes and users. You need to remove foreign lock if the original process doesn't exist. - process A create lock - process A crash and the lock file is still there - process B detect that there is lock, but owner of lock doesn't running - process B remove old lock and creates new one with own PID See: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html