Files created with emacs are owned by system

Files created with emacs are owned by system

[iainb.forms]

Hi,

I'm running Emacs on OSX 10.4 in Terminal. Every time I create a new
file using C-x C-f the owner is "system" and not my user, so the files
become read-only! I'm not running with sudo or su, so I'm not quite
sure why this is happening.

I'd like emacs to automatically save the files under my user account.
Any help with this is much appreciated.

Thanks
Iain

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 31.07.2008 um 20:44 schrieb iainb.forms@googlemail.com:

> I'm running Emacs on OSX 10.4 in Terminal. Every time I create a new
> file using C-x C-f the owner is "system" and not my user, so the files
> become read-only!

Could you tell us the value of the environment variable GROUP? And  
what is the command groups returning?

--
Greetings

   Pete

Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except  
study for that instructor's course.
				– Fourth Law of Applied Terror

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Thierry Volpiatto]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com writes:

> Hi,
>
> I'm running Emacs on OSX 10.4 in Terminal. Every time I create a new
> file using C-x C-f the owner is "system" and not my user, so the files
> become read-only! I'm not running with sudo or su, so I'm not quite
> sure why this is happening.
>
> I'd like emacs to automatically save the files under my user account.
> Any help with this is much appreciated.
>
> Thanks
> Iain
>
Hi,
are you sure you have a user account on your system ?
What say the command? :

whoami

-- 
A + Thierry Volpiatto
Location: Saint-Cyr-Sur-Mer - France

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Nikolaj Schumacher]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com wrote:

> I'm running Emacs on OSX 10.4 in Terminal. Every time I create a new
> file using C-x C-f the owner is "system" and not my user, so the files
> become read-only! I'm not running with sudo or su, so I'm not quite
> sure why this is happening.

I'm on 10.5, and it doesn't have a user "system".  Does the account have
the same user ID as "root"?


regards,
Nikolaj Schumacher

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[iainb.forms]

whoami: iainb
groups: iainb appserveradm appserverusr admin
echo $GROUP: returned nothing - if there are ways to get env vars set
within emacs, I don't know how to do that.

the user "system" doesn't appear in my Netinfo database, but it is
quite common to find it owning the file if using the Get Info command
from the Finder (which gives more meta info, so I tend to use that
instead of unix commands for ownership). It appears to be an alias
used by Apple

ls -al:
-rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       8 Aug  1 12:27 Dummyfile.hs


Thanks for taking the time to look into this.

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[iainb.forms]

Btw, just saw this recent post to the group that has a similar problem
with creating read-only files:
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/browse_thread/thread/91010d5de48d8b98#

I'm not sure what to do about the "set-defa8ult-file-modes" advice -
I'm running Haskell mode, and it's the only stuff in my init file.

umask: 0022

Regards,
Iain

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 13:32 schrieb iainb.forms:

> -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       8 Aug  1 12:27 Dummyfile.hs

This file is owned by root – not by you.

You should try:

	sudo chown -R iainb:iainb ~iainb

log off and in again.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Without vi there is only GNU Emacs

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Joost Kremers]

Peter Dyballa wrote:
> You should try:
>
> 	sudo chown -R iainb:iainb ~iainb
>
> log off and in again.

are you sure that's such a wise idea? changing ownership of literally
*everything* in someone's home dir?

-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[iainb.forms]

On Aug 1, 12:52 pm, Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyba...@Web.DE> wrote:
> Am 01.08.2008 um 13:32 schrieb iainb.forms:
>
> > -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       8 Aug  1 12:27 Dummyfile.hs
>
> This file is owned by root – not by you.
>
> You should try:
>
>         sudo chown -R iainb:iainb ~iainb
>
> log off and in again.
>
> --
> Greetings
>
>    Pete
>
> Without vi there is only GNU Emacs

What I'm really looking for is a way to stop emacs saving files as
root, or else I'm going to have to run chown every time I create a
file, or create the file using touch and then open it in emacs.

Neither of these is an optimal solution. Surely there must be some
sort of setting that tells emacs who to save files as?

Regards,
Iain

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 14:01 schrieb Joost Kremers:

>> 	sudo chown -R iainb:iainb ~iainb
>>
>> log off and in again.
>
> are you sure that's such a wise idea? changing ownership of literally
> *everything* in someone's home dir?


The Haskell file in his home directory he showed did not belong to  
him. He also described that he has problems to save files. So I  
assumed that also directories might not be owned by him.

BTW, what's so bad (or dangerous or capitalistic) of owning  
everything in my home directory tree?

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

Heißt 'Wegwerfgesellschaft', dass mensch diese Gesellschaft weg  
werfen *kann* oder *muss*?

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Joost Kremers]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com wrote:
> What I'm really looking for is a way to stop emacs saving files as
> root, or else I'm going to have to run chown every time I create a
> file, or create the file using touch and then open it in emacs.

if emacs creates files as root, it must be running as root. the only way i
know of that this can happen is if it's started by root or if it's set
suid.

btw, running chown as user on a file owned by root won't get you anything
more than a "permission denied".


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Joost Kremers]

Peter Dyballa wrote:
> The Haskell file in his home directory he showed did not belong to  
> him. He also described that he has problems to save files. So I  
> assumed that also directories might not be owned by him.
>
> BTW, what's so bad (or dangerous or capitalistic) of owning  
> everything in my home directory tree?

i don't know. but that's exactly the point. you never know what reasons
there might be for having files not owned by user in ~user. (or files not
set to the group <user>, for that matter.)

besides, running chown as user on a file owned by root has no effect...


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 15:16 schrieb iainb.forms:

> What I'm really looking for is a way to stop emacs saving files as
> root,

How do you know this? Did ps tell you? How are you launching Emacs?  
What is this file? Which version is Emacs? Can you launch it with -q  
and does it behave the same? If yes, can you launch it with -Q and  
does it still behave the same?

If yes again, I'd recommend to install Mac OS X again. Because  
something fundamental would be defective.

--
Greetings

   Pete                                           0
                                            %-/\_//
                                             (*)(*)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Richard G Riley]

Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> writes:

> Peter Dyballa wrote:
>> The Haskell file in his home directory he showed did not belong to  
>> him. He also described that he has problems to save files. So I  
>> assumed that also directories might not be owned by him.
>>
>> BTW, what's so bad (or dangerous or capitalistic) of owning  
>> everything in my home directory tree?
>
> i don't know. but that's exactly the point. you never know what reasons
> there might be for having files not owned by user in ~user. (or files not
> set to the group <user>, for that matter.)
>
> besides, running chown as user on a file owned by root has no
> effect...

It does when you use sudo doesn't it?

Personally I think its a bad idea to do this recursive change unless you
are totally sure you know there are no side affects.

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Joost Kremers]

Richard G Riley wrote:
> Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> writes:
>> besides, running chown as user on a file owned by root has no
>> effect...
>
> It does when you use sudo doesn't it?

that depends on how sudo is configured. the user in question may not be
allowed to run chown.

> Personally I think its a bad idea to do this recursive change unless you
> are totally sure you know there are no side affects.

yup, i agree...


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[iainb.forms]

1. I'd use chown, get the error message, curse, and then add sudo to
the front :)

2. I own the directory the Dummyfile.hs was in
drwxr-xr-x    20 iainb  iainb      680 Aug  1 15:04 Write a Scheme
compiler in 48 hours

3. GNU Emacs 21.2.1

4. How do you know this?: I press C-x C-f, type in the filename, press
return, and then use Finder > Get Info or ls -al from a terminal;
-rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       8 Aug  1 12:27 Dummyfile.hs
-rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       9 Aug  1 15:03 Dummyfile2.hs

5. How are you launching Emacs?: I open a terminal, type "emacs",
press return. If I run "whoami", then I'm me (iainb) and not root.

6. What is this file?: any file I save from Emacs using C-x C-f.

7. emacs -q:
 -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb      10 Aug  1 15:04 Dummyfileq.hs

8. emacs -Q: unknown option; I also can't find it in the man page.

9. sudo emacs:
-rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       9 Aug  1 15:12 Dummyfilesudo.hs

10. su -l root
emacs:
-rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       9 Aug  1 15:16 Dummyfilesuroot.hs

and in response to the "use a bulldozer to crack a nut" suggestions ;)
11. I'm not rebuilding OSX just for Emacs
12. I'm not recursing through every file to change it's ownership


Most importantly, (probably) it does seem that emacs is running as
root
ps -aux | grep emacs:
root      1805   0.0 -0.2    48104   4548  p2  S+    7:38PM   0:00.36
emacs

I have no idea why it's doing this or how to change it. If I quit
emacs and while in the same terminal run "whoami", I'm still iainb.

Regards,
Iain

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Joost Kremers]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com wrote:
> 3. GNU Emacs 21.2.1
[...]
> 8. emacs -Q: unknown option; I also can't find it in the man page.

-Q is a fairly new option. perhaps it was only introduced with emacs 22.

> Most importantly, (probably) it does seem that emacs is running as
> root
> ps -aux | grep emacs:
> root      1805   0.0 -0.2    48104   4548  p2  S+    7:38PM   0:00.36
> emacs
>
> I have no idea why it's doing this or how to change it. If I quit
> emacs and while in the same terminal run "whoami", I'm still iainb.

do:

ls -l $(which emacs)

i'm suspecting that your permissions will be set to 'rws' for the owner,
meaning that the binary is suid (i.e. it runs as the owner of the file, in
this case root, not as the user that's actually started the process.)


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[iainb.forms]

On Aug 1, 3:33 pm, Joost Kremers <joostkrem...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> iainb.fo...@googlemail.com wrote:
> > 3. GNU Emacs 21.2.1
> [...]
> > 8. emacs -Q: unknown option; I also can't find it in the man page.
>
> -Q is a fairly new option. perhaps it was only introduced with emacs 22.
>
> > Most importantly, (probably) it does seem that emacs is running as
> > root
> > ps -aux | grep emacs:
> > root      1805   0.0 -0.2    48104   4548  p2  S+    7:38PM   0:00.36
> > emacs
>
> > I have no idea why it's doing this or how to change it. If I quit
> > emacs and while in the same terminal run "whoami", I'm still iainb.
>
> do:
>
> ls -l $(which emacs)
>
> i'm suspecting that your permissions will be set to 'rws' for the owner,
> meaning that the binary is suid (i.e. it runs as the owner of the file, in
> this case root, not as the user that's actually started the process.)
>
> --
> Joost Kremers                                      joostkrem...@yahoo.com
> Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
> EN:SiS(9)

well, I've installed emacs version 22.2 into /usr/local and it doesn't
save the files as root, it saves them as me.

For the record
ls -l /usr/local/bin/emacs
-rwxr-xr-t   2 root  wheel  9673784 Aug  1 15:36 /usr/local/bin/emacs

ls -l /usr/bin/emacs
-r-sr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  30008 Aug 19  2006 /usr/bin/emacs

Many thanks to everyone for the input, I doubt I'd have bothered to
look for the newer version if not prompted and poked by your
questions.

Regards,
Iain

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 16:22 schrieb iainb.forms:

> 4. How do you know this?: I press C-x C-f, type in the filename, press
> return, and then use Finder > Get Info or ls -al from a terminal;

My question was: from where do you know it's root that driving your  
Emacs?

>
> 6. What is this file?: any file I save from Emacs using C-x C-f.

My question was: what is this file that you use to launch Emacs? 'ls - 
l `which emacs`' would give the answer. And another:

	file `which emacs`

>
> 7. emacs -q:
>  -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb      10 Aug  1 15:04 Dummyfileq.hs

It's more than 1 hour elder than your eMail ...

>
> 8. emacs -Q: unknown option; I also can't find it in the man page.

That's OK: GNU Emacs 21.2 does not know -Q, the option --no-site-file  
would perform the same.

>
> Most importantly, (probably) it does seem that emacs is running as
> root
> ps -aux | grep emacs:
> root      1805   0.0 -0.2    48104   4548  p2  S+    7:38PM   0:00.36
> emacs

This shows that *some* emacs (script or whatever) is running since  
yesterday evening, or such, in terminal /dev/ttyp2 and obviously  
launched (and owned) by root. For ps you could use an alias or shell  
function like

	for (t)csh:	ps -lwwx   | egrep UID\|\!:1 | grep -v grep
	for bash:	() { ps -lwwx | egrep UID\|${1} | grep -v grep ; }

but both won't work here correctly (except $* is used instead of $1).  
And actually you would need to put Apple's Emacs into the background  
(C-z) in that Terminal and then invoke:

	ps -aux -t `tty | cut -c 9-` | egrep 'USER|emacs'

and also:

	pstree -w -p $$

The shell command fg will bring Emacs back from background into the  
foreground.

>
> I have no idea why it's doing this or how to change it. If I quit
> emacs and while in the same terminal run "whoami", I'm still iainb.


You could reveal the sorted output from the env command ... And: in  
Emacs you could launch also a shell (M-x shell RET) and invoke there  
too: env | sort.

--
Greetings

   Pete

When in doubt, use brute force.
				– Ken Thompson

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 17:04 schrieb iainb.forms:

> ls -l /usr/bin/emacs
> -r-sr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  30008 Aug 19  2006 /usr/bin/emacs


The permissions are faulty, the "s" (setuid bit) instead of "x,"  
which makes every Emacs user to root. 'sudo chmod 555 /usr/bin/emacs'  
will correct them. (Is Leopard two years old?) It's a security hole.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Inside every small problem is a large problem struggling to get out.
				– Second Law of Blissful Ignorance

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Thierry Volpiatto]

Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

> Am 01.08.2008 um 17:04 schrieb iainb.forms:
>
>> ls -l /usr/bin/emacs
>> -r-sr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  30008 Aug 19  2006 /usr/bin/emacs

wheel ? why wheel ? it should be root.

>
> The permissions are faulty, the "s" (setuid bit) instead of "x," which
> makes every Emacs user to root. 'sudo chmod 555 /usr/bin/emacs'  will
> correct them. (Is Leopard two years old?) It's a security hole.
>
> --
> Greetings
>
>   Pete
>
> Inside every small problem is a large problem struggling to get out.
> 				– Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
>
>
>

-- 
A + Thierry Volpiatto
Location: Saint-Cyr-Sur-Mer - France

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 18:12 schrieb Thierry Volpiatto:

> wheel ? why wheel ? it should be root.


Group is wheel in Mac OS X.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Don't just do something, sit there.

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Joost Kremers]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com wrote:
> For the record
> ls -l /usr/local/bin/emacs
> -rwxr-xr-t   2 root  wheel  9673784 Aug  1 15:36 /usr/local/bin/emacs
>
> ls -l /usr/bin/emacs
> -r-sr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  30008 Aug 19  2006 /usr/bin/emacs

see? as i thought, the emacs binary is set-uid root.

the question is, why? emacs is in essence a full programming language, so
when it's suid root, anyone with shell access to your machine can basically
do anything they want on it. which, obviously, is a major security risk.

so assuming that apple didn't do this as part of the standard install, and
if *you* didn't change it either, then who the hell did?

another thing i don't really understand is that /usr/bin/emacs is only
30008 bytes large. the emacs binary you compiled is about 300 times
bigger...

are you sure that box isn't hacked into?


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 19:47 schrieb Joost Kremers:

> another thing i don't really understand is that /usr/bin/emacs is only
> 30008 bytes large. the emacs binary you compiled is about 300 times
> bigger...


This Apple Emacs is -nw only. Since half a decade 21.2.

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

Without vi there is only GNU Emacs

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[David Kastrup]

Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

> Am 01.08.2008 um 19:47 schrieb Joost Kremers:
>
>> another thing i don't really understand is that /usr/bin/emacs is only
>> 30008 bytes large. the emacs binary you compiled is about 300 times
>> bigger...
>
>
> This Apple Emacs is -nw only. Since half a decade 21.2.

Emacs 21.2 can't be compressed into 30008 bytes.  No fscking way.  The
most likely explanation is that this machine has been hacked, emacs (and
likely other binaries) replaced by a propagating virus that does its
damage code, then fetches and executes the original command from
somewhere else.

Try a general ls -l /usr/bin and see what other setuid root binaries you
got.

Another explanation would be that emacs has been replaced by emacsclient
that is setuid because of a hack or braindamage.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Joost Kremers]

Peter Dyballa wrote:
>
> Am 01.08.2008 um 19:47 schrieb Joost Kremers:
>
>> another thing i don't really understand is that /usr/bin/emacs is only
>> 30008 bytes large. the emacs binary you compiled is about 300 times
>> bigger...
>
> This Apple Emacs is -nw only. Since half a decade 21.2.

i know. i just find it hard to believe that that would make such a
tremendous difference. slackware provides an emacs binary compiled with X11
support and a binary without. the size difference between them is about
430kB, about 8% of the X11 binary.


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 01.08.2008 um 21:17 schrieb David Kastrup:

>> This Apple Emacs is -nw only. Since half a decade 21.2.
>
> Emacs 21.2 can't be compressed into 30008 bytes.  No fscking way.  The
> most likely explanation is that this machine has been hacked, emacs  
> (and
> likely other binaries) replaced by a propagating virus that does its
> damage code, then fetches and executes the original command from
> somewhere else.


My Mac isn't hacked and it wasn't hacked before. Proof: running Disk  
Utility (or the corresponding command line utility, i.e., diskutil  
verifyPermissions <device>) to check integrity of the installation.  
OK, if the receipt files of the installed packages have been  
substituted, then it won't fail on a hacked system. Anyone willing to  
crack my root password?


Now, here is the dull reality:

	pete 265 /\ ls -l /usr/bin/emacs
	-r-xr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  13964 20 Feb 23:31 /usr/bin/emacs
	pete 266 /\ file /usr/bin/emacs
	/usr/bin/emacs: Mach-O executable ppc
	pete 267 /\ otool -L /usr/bin/emacs
	/usr/bin/emacs:
	        /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0,  
current version 88.1.11)

Otool -L works like ldd in linux.

	pete 268 /\ uname -a
	Darwin localhost 8.11.0 Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.0: Wed Oct 10  
18:26:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.24.17~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh  
powerpc


Just received, as description of Security Update 2008-005's contents:

	Disk Utility
	CVE-ID:  CVE-2008-2324
	Available for:  Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11
	Impact:  A local user may obtain system privileges
	Description:  The "Repair Permissions" tool in Disk Utility makes
	/usr/bin/emacs setuid. After the Repair Permissions tool has been
	run, a local user may use emacs to run commands with system
	privileges. This update addresses the issue by correcting the
	permissions applied to emacs in the Repair Permissions tool. This
	issue does not affect systems running Mac OS X v10.5 and later.


--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

Klingons do not believe in indentation - except perhaps in the skulls  
of their project managers.

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Tim X]

Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> writes:

> Peter Dyballa wrote:
>> You should try:
>>
>> 	sudo chown -R iainb:iainb ~iainb
>>
>> log off and in again.
>
> are you sure that's such a wise idea? changing ownership of literally
> *everything* in someone's home dir?

Not only is it a bad idea, it is addressing the symptom and not the
cause. If emacs is creating these files as the OP suggested and those
files are being created as root rather than as the user he is running
as, I suspect he has a much bigger problem. Also, if the problem is due
to some stuff up in his environment config, using the ~username may have
unexpected results.

Things I would look at include -

1. verify his user account settings e.g. uid, gid, home directory, umask
etc. The 'id' command may be available (I don't use Mac and am not that
familiar with BSD or systems derived from it). 

2. Check to see who owns his home directory and what bits are set. For
example, if the setuid bit is set on his home dir and for some reason it
is owned by root, then files created in that directory will be created
as root. Note that this could be occuring at a higher level e.g. the
directory /home is usually owned by root. If its setuid was set, then
home directories created within that directory may also be owned by root
etc. 

3. run a command like 'touch mytest' in a terminal and see if that is
owned by root etc. If it is, then you know the problem is not emacs, but
with his environment. 

4. Check the emacs binary itself. Maybe it has had setuid bit set or
something similar. 

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Tim X]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com writes:

> 1. I'd use chown, get the error message, curse, and then add sudo to
> the front :)
>
> 2. I own the directory the Dummyfile.hs was in
> drwxr-xr-x    20 iainb  iainb      680 Aug  1 15:04 Write a Scheme
> compiler in 48 hours
>
> 3. GNU Emacs 21.2.1
>
> 4. How do you know this?: I press C-x C-f, type in the filename, press
> return, and then use Finder > Get Info or ls -al from a terminal;
> -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       8 Aug  1 12:27 Dummyfile.hs
> -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       9 Aug  1 15:03 Dummyfile2.hs
>
> 5. How are you launching Emacs?: I open a terminal, type "emacs",
> press return. If I run "whoami", then I'm me (iainb) and not root.
>
> 6. What is this file?: any file I save from Emacs using C-x C-f.
>
> 7. emacs -q:
>  -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb      10 Aug  1 15:04 Dummyfileq.hs
>
> 8. emacs -Q: unknown option; I also can't find it in the man page.
>
> 9. sudo emacs:
> -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       9 Aug  1 15:12 Dummyfilesudo.hs
>
> 10. su -l root
> emacs:
> -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       9 Aug  1 15:16 Dummyfilesuroot.hs
>
> and in response to the "use a bulldozer to crack a nut" suggestions ;)
> 11. I'm not rebuilding OSX just for Emacs
> 12. I'm not recursing through every file to change it's ownership
>
>
> Most importantly, (probably) it does seem that emacs is running as
> root
> ps -aux | grep emacs:
> root      1805   0.0 -0.2    48104   4548  p2  S+    7:38PM   0:00.36
> emacs
>
> I have no idea why it's doing this or how to change it. If I quit
> emacs and while in the same terminal run "whoami", I'm still iainb.
>
> Regards,
> Iain

What are the permissions on the emacs binary?

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Tim X]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com writes:

> On Aug 1, 12:52 pm, Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyba...@Web.DE> wrote:
>> Am 01.08.2008 um 13:32 schrieb iainb.forms:
>>
>> > -rw-r--r--    1 root   iainb       8 Aug  1 12:27 Dummyfile.hs
>>
>> This file is owned by root – not by you.
>>
>> You should try:
>>
>>         sudo chown -R iainb:iainb ~iainb
>>
>> log off and in again.
>>
>> --
>> Greetings
>>
>>    Pete
>>
>> Without vi there is only GNU Emacs
>
> What I'm really looking for is a way to stop emacs saving files as
> root, or else I'm going to have to run chown every time I create a
> file, or create the file using touch and then open it in emacs.
>
> Neither of these is an optimal solution. Surely there must be some
> sort of setting that tells emacs who to save files as?

For emacs to save files as root, it has to be runninig as root. What you
need to determine is why emacs is running as root. A couple of ways that
I  can think of wehre this can happen include -

1. Emacs has the setuid bit set 

2. The way you are starting emacs is causing it to be run inside a root
process. 

3. Something is really screwed up in your user environment. 

I believed you posted something that showed emacs is running as root. Do
the following 

ls -l /usr/bin/emacs (assuming emacs is in /usr/bini)

This will show you if the setuid bit is set.

Do you run emacs by typing it from the command line or from a menu or
some other launcher? 

Do ls -d /home

and  ls -ld /home/<username> and check what permissions are set. 

Tim



-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Tim X]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com writes:

> On Aug 1, 3:33 pm, Joost Kremers <joostkrem...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> iainb.fo...@googlemail.com wrote:
>> > 3. GNU Emacs 21.2.1
>> [...]
>> > 8. emacs -Q: unknown option; I also can't find it in the man page.
>>
>> -Q is a fairly new option. perhaps it was only introduced with emacs 22.
>>
>> > Most importantly, (probably) it does seem that emacs is running as
>> > root
>> > ps -aux | grep emacs:
>> > root      1805   0.0 -0.2    48104   4548  p2  S+    7:38PM   0:00.36
>> > emacs
>>
>> > I have no idea why it's doing this or how to change it. If I quit
>> > emacs and while in the same terminal run "whoami", I'm still iainb.
>>
>> do:
>>
>> ls -l $(which emacs)
>>
>> i'm suspecting that your permissions will be set to 'rws' for the owner,
>> meaning that the binary is suid (i.e. it runs as the owner of the file, in
>> this case root, not as the user that's actually started the process.)
>>
>> --
>> Joost Kremers                                      joostkrem...@yahoo.com
>> Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
>> EN:SiS(9)
>
> well, I've installed emacs version 22.2 into /usr/local and it doesn't
> save the files as root, it saves them as me.
>
> For the record
> ls -l /usr/local/bin/emacs
> -rwxr-xr-t   2 root  wheel  9673784 Aug  1 15:36 /usr/local/bin/emacs
>
> ls -l /usr/bin/emacs
> -r-sr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  30008 Aug 19  2006 /usr/bin/emacs
>

There is your problem. Emacs has the setuid bit set. this means it will
execute as the owner, which is root. 

While switching to a new version as worked around your problem, I would
be rther concerned about this. It would be extremely unusual to have
emacs installed with the setuid bit set. I would certainly be checking
to see what other binaries have this set and would immediately 
consider the system has been compromised. If you find many files with
the setuid bit set, I would strongly recommend a re-install.

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[iainb.forms]

Got rid of the setuid, thanks. I'm not sure why the 21.2 emacs is so
small or the suid was there, so I checked on another Tiger machine. I
can't be entirely sure emacs wasn't there from 10.3 (Panther), can't
remember. If it's a virus, it still worked as emacs :)

This is mine (now)

-r-xr-xr-x    1 root  wheel        30008 Aug 19  2006 emacs
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel     21227988 Jul  2 11:00 emacs-i386
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel      3583344 Apr 26 20:50 emacs-undumped
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel        50944 Aug 19  2006 emacsclient

This is the other OSX Tiger 10.4

-r-xr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     13964 Feb 20 22:31 /usr/bin/emacs
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  30686828 Apr 28  2005 /usr/bin/
emacs-21.2.1
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel   1850988 Feb 20 22:31 /usr/bin/emacs-
undumped
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     22640 Mar 26  2005 /usr/bin/emacsclient

compared to my /usr/local/bin emacs 22.2

-rwxr-xr-t   2 root  wheel  9673784 Aug  1 15:36 /usr/local/bin/emacs
-rwxr-xr-t   2 root  wheel  9673784 Aug  1 15:36 /usr/local/bin/
emacs-22.2
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel    51540 Aug  1 15:36 /usr/local/bin/
emacsclient

Regards,
Iain

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[D. Power]

In article <mailman.15719.1217606007.18990.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> wrote:

> Am 01.08.2008 um 17:04 schrieb iainb.forms:
> 
> > ls -l /usr/bin/emacs
> > -r-sr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  30008 Aug 19  2006 /usr/bin/emacs
> 
> 
> The permissions are faulty, the "s" (setuid bit) instead of "x,"  
> which makes every Emacs user to root. 'sudo chmod 555 /usr/bin/emacs'  
> will correct them. (Is Leopard two years old?) It's a security hole.
> 

I'm the OP of the message mentioned earlier in this thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/browse_thread/thread/91010d
5de48d8b98#
It seems odd that this same problem cropped up on two different machines 
so close together (I'm running OS X 10.4).  There haven't been any 
recent updates that should have changed permissions like that.  Anyway, 
your suggestion worked in my case, thanks.

-- 
D. Power
"I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his 
own way."
-Robert Frost

Re: Files created with emacs are owned by system

[Mark Hood]

iainb.forms@googlemail.com writes:

> Got rid of the setuid, thanks. I'm not sure why the 21.2 emacs is so
> small or the suid was there, so I checked on another Tiger machine. I
> can't be entirely sure emacs wasn't there from 10.3 (Panther), can't
> remember. If it's a virus, it still worked as emacs :)

As another poster has noted, the suid bit was set by the broken
"Repair Disk Permissions" function of the Disk Utility in some builds
of OSX 10.4.  It's definitely a security risk that has supposedly been
fixed in some more recent update.  (I haven't tested it myself yet).

The Emacs is small because it's just a compiled launcher for the real
Emacs that provides a terminal window for Emacs to run in if the
launcher was invoked without a terminal.  The 21.2 version built into
OSX 10.4 isn't compiled with window system support.

-- Mark