A few questions...

[John-Mark Gurney]

Victor Loureiro Lima wrote this message on Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 16:35 -0300:
> 2007/7/24, John-Mark Gurney <gurney_j at resnet.uoregon.edu>:
> >Daniel Molina Wegener wrote this message on Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 20:52 
> >-0400:
> >> a) Is there any function or variable that tells me which is the
> >>    root user UID in the system, or root always have 0 and it's
> >>    an "elegant" option to compare the variables or structure
> >>    members against zero.
> >
> >#include <sys/conf.h>
> >
> >uid == UID_ROOT
> >
> >> b) Can normal users look for system processes or kernel threads?
> >
> >Yes, ps does this...
> >
> 
> ps(1) either elevates its priviledges during execution, or has some
> other way of medling into the afairs of other processes that will
> eventually need some higher priviledge status (either that, or I am
> really out-dated on modern operational systems)

hydrogen,ttypm,/home/johng,503$ls -l /bin/ps
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  31372 May  8  2005 /bin/ps*

So, as you see, no suid or sgid necessary for ps to function...
FreeBSD exports most/all of the info through sysctl which does not
require elevated privs to get...

And ps doesn't medling..  it's just a voyeur..

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney				Voice: +1 415 225 5579

     "All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not."