Re: Banging out of MENUS

>Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 09:49:30 -0400 (EDT) >From: PMWAGES@delphi.com >Subject: Banging out of MENUS >X-Informix-List-Id: <list.2961> > > Many thanks to Bob Beaulieu and Sebastian Bomhard for their responses >to my question { restated below ). However, setting the SHELL environment >to null or ( /dev/null ) creates a new problem. With a null SHELL, you >cannot execute any 4ge programs within a menu system.What we have come up >with is to remove /bin from the path of the user or to create a dummy >"sh" program in a directory preceding /bin in the PATH. Both of these >solutions are not groovy. So the question still stands. > > Is there any way to prevent users from shelling out ( banging out ) >of an informix menu with an exclamation point (!) ? Well, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, there is a solution documented in "Using Informix-SQL" by yours truly (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-56509-9), which uses a special restricted shell to only allow the desired commands to be executed -- while keeping a normal path. You'd need to customise it to suit your environment, of course, and it could benefit from being upgraded to read the acceptable commands from a file instead of being compiled in, but it gives you a basis from which to work. I don't currently have a copy of the source code for the pseudo-shell online or I'd post it -- it'll have to be recovered from tape, so unless I get a demand for it, your unlikely to see it. Yours, Jonathan Leffler (johnl@informix.com) #include <disclaimer.h>