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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!network.ucsd.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pipex!demon!centrix.demon.co.uk!damian Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development From: damian@centrix.demon.co.uk (damian) Subject: Re: SIGKILL and kill References: <1qo3mq$d4b@news.cs.tu-berlin.de> Organization: Centrix Keywords: SIGNALS SECURITY Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1993 10:54:03 +0000 Message-ID: <9304171535.ab08751@gate.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk Lines: 36 In article <1qo3mq$d4b@news.cs.tu-berlin.de> klier@cs.tu-berlin.de (Jan Klier) writes: [ Restricting kill -9 to superuser only ] I agree with the problem, though your solution is a bit draconian. It somewhat turns off the rather nice 'you asked for it, you got it' unix mentality. I am not sure that 386bsd is the right enviroment to test the idea. Most people who use 386bsd know what they are doing. You really want a commercial unix to try it on (with real non-techie users), I guess for testing you could just replace kill with your own program. kill -9 is often used without even trying a normal kill (kill -15), I know of several bits of software that like to clean up locks, clean up data files, flush buffers etc etc. Allowing only superuser to send a SIGKILL might break some software, but not much. [ FLAME ON ] I think unfortunately the main problem is that a large amount amount of commercial software (particularly 'DOS ports') simply ignore SIGTERM (15). I think this is criminal, no software should ignore SIGTERM, since as we have seen a SIGKILL will soon follow. In fact I have been trying to work out why sh ignores SIGTERM when at the command prompt (it behaves properly when running a script). [ FLAME OFF ] Damian -- +----------------------------+------------------------------------------------+ | Damian Ivereigh | If you can't suss out what this is replying to | | damian@centrix.demon.co.uk | get a threaded news reader, like trn. :-) | | Twickenham, U.K. | This is the best way to cut wasted traffic | +----------------------------+------------------------------------------------+