[plug] mandrake 9.4 startup

[James Devenish]

In message <20040219115608.8D7418C59 at spark.plug.linux.org.au>
on Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 07:56:57PM +0800, filpee wrote:
> Ah
> I think you've hit it
> They are both setup as rwxr--r--
> Now I'm pretty new at this but from memory this means full access to owner
> But only readable to everyone else

Yep.

> If this is the case I expect that it's the user "system" that would be
> trying

Eek, that must be Mandrake-specific. It might also explain why the
script could fail (maybe 'system' is not privileged to perform the
desired actions -- I really don't know). If it really is the 'system'
user, then you should just change the owner of the file to 'system'.
Although you /could/ change the permissions like you suggested, it is
uncommon to do so. There are two reasons that come to mind:

1/ It is 'conventional' to include group-executable permissions whenever
   there are world-executable permissions. That is, have rwxr-xr-x
   instead of rwxr--r-x (It doesn't usually make sense to try to exclude
   the 'group' if you are already allowing 'all other users'.)
2/ It has the wrong semantics. It would suggest that "anybody and
   everybody" can attempt to use the script. Instead, I would think that
   only 'root' would ever be able to use the script. If, in your case,
   it is the user 'system', then only 'system' or 'root' would ever want
   to use the script. So, don't set 'world executable' permissions, just
   change the owner: `chown system /path/to/script`