IDS Forum

Re: Question on ownership of oninit

Posted By: ART KAGEL, BLOOMBERG/ 731 LEXIN
Date: Monday, 21 May 2007, at 1:15 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Question on ownership of oninit (Kern Doe)

From the 7.31UD8XH $INFORMIXDIR/etc/IDSfiles file:

bin/oninit root informix 6754 BRAND VRSN SUG

These are the 'official' permissions settings that the installation script and
bind executable apply during installation. My posting in 1998 was discussion
changing the ownership from the default to improve security if you always start
the engine as informix anyway. It was never neccessary for root to own/run the
oninit processes except to make starting the engine from within the rc scripts a
bit easier.

Indeed it was shortly thereafter that Informix changed the default ownership for
oninit from root to informix for 9.20 (IB that was the release) and began to
discourage us from using root at all.

Art S. Kagel

----- Original Message -----
From: Kern Doe <ids@iiug.org>
At: 5/21 12:40:37

Huhm... but in 1998 you said this "The ownership of the running oninit
processes should be root if the engine is
started from the system startup and informix if started by user informix from
the command line.". My records for a system that I used to work with (IDS 7.31
OS=Dynix/ptx) where Informix oninit processes were owned by Informix:

ps -eF | sort +4 -rn | more

informix 13777 1 245 649736 533092 13:18:10 ? 25:52 oninit -v
informix 13924 13803 9 649732 5920 13:20:25 ? 1:11 oninit -v
informix 13803 13777 227 649728 527292 3 13:19:39 ? 29:27 oninit -v
informix 13804 13777 254 649728 525548 0 13:19:39 ? 25:59 oninit -v
informix 13808 13777 0 649728 4700 13:19:43 ? 0:03 oninit -v
informix 13926 13803 4 649708 5404 13:20:26 ? 1:17 oninit -v
informix 13927 13803 9 649708 4352 13:20:26 ? 0:50 oninit -v
informix 13802 13777 0 649696 1400 13:19:38 ? 0:03 oninit -v
informix 13805 13777 1 649696 2068 13:19:40 ? 0:03 oninit -v
informix 13806 13777 0 649696 1480 13:19:41 ? 0:00 oninit -v
informix 13807 13777 11 649696 398384 13:19:42 ? 3:40 oninit -v
informix 13809 13777 10 649696 391908 13:19:44 ? 3:34 oninit -v

----- Original Message ----
From: "ART KAGEL, BLOOMBERG/ 731 LEXIN" <kagel@bloomberg.net>
To: ids@iiug.org
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 12:29:54 PM
Subject: Re: Question on ownership of oninit [9201]

IDS versions prior to 9.20 (including 7.31) are all owned by root and are SUID
programs so no matter who starts them they run as root. Later releases are
owned by user informix so the behavior is different.

Art S. Kagel
----- Original Message -----
From: Kern Doe <ids@iiug.org>
At: 5/21 10:33:55

I seem to agree with Art's 10 year-old comment (see below) -- basically, if
Informix instance is started by root, oninit processes will be owned by root;
if started as Informix then they will be owned by Informix.

However, at this environment, oninit processes are always owned by root
whether Informix instance is started by root or Informix -- Does anyone know
the reason?
Thanks for any comment.
Kern --

On 1st July 1998 kagel@bloomberg.net (Art S. Kagel) wrote:-
The ownership of the running oninit processes should be root if the engine is
started from the system startup and informix if started by user informix from
the command line. It really does not matter much in general except that on
different platforms there may be a requirement for the owner to be root in
order for processor affinity, core dumping, NOAGE, etc to function properly.
Since oninit is an SUID program it's real and effective userid may differ if
not started as root which will cause problems core dumping and changing
process status such as aging and affinity on certain systems.

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Messages In This Thread

• Question on ownership of oninit
  Kern Doe -- Monday, 21 May 2007, at 10:33 a.m.
  • Re: Question on ownership of oninit
    ART KAGEL, BLOOMBERG/ 731 LEXIN -- Monday, 21 May 2007, at 12:29 p.m.
    • Re: Question on ownership of oninit
      Kern Doe -- Monday, 21 May 2007, at 12:40 p.m.
      • Re: Question on ownership of oninit
        ART KAGEL, BLOOMBERG/ 731 LEXIN -- Monday, 21 May 2007, at 1:15 p.m.

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