Bug 15109 - SOCKDIR default not on /tmp/... - Causes a lot of network traffic.
Summary: SOCKDIR default not on /tmp/... - Causes a lot of network traffic.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: screen
Version: 6.1
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Bill Nottingham
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2000-08-02 12:11 UTC by Eskil Brun
Modified: 2014-03-17 02:15 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2000-08-02 12:11:42 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Eskil Brun 2000-08-02 12:11:40 UTC
The patch screen-3.9.4-notmp.patch that the screen-3.9.5-4 rpm was built
with caused a lot of
network traffic between two fast computers on our network. A user ran
screen on a linux computer
with RedHat 6.2 and his home directory was NFS mounted from a  SunOS 5.6
computer. As SOCKDIR
was on an NFS-mounted directory this caused problems. About 5000 packets
per second of  NFS traffic.

The man page for screen said:

CUSTOMIZATION
       The "socket directory" defaults either to $HOME/.screen or
       simply to /tmp/screens or preferably to /usr/local/screens
       chosen  at  compile-time.  If  screen is installed setuid-
       root, then the administrator should compile screen with an
       adequate  (not NFS mounted) socket directory. If screen is
       not running setuid-root, the user can specify any mode 700
       directory in the environment variable $SCREENDIR.

Given that a lot of people have NFS-mounted home directories I consider the
screen-3.9.4-notmp.patch patch file to be perhaps causing more problems
than it solves.
I cannot see the reason for it being there in the first place? But I would
like to know.

Removing this patch from the source RPM distribution and rebuilding the
package 
solved our problem.

Eskil...
:-)

Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 2000-08-02 16:29:08 UTC
It's *much* simpler from a security standpoint; it avoids
lots of wrangling to allow both root and a user to
use screen at the same time, and it avoids making various
world-writable directories and files in /tmp.


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