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Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 09:05:53 +0000 (GMT)
From: Steve McIntyre <93sam@eng.cam.ac.uk>
X-Sender: sam1007@hammer.chu.cam.ac.uk
To: submit@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Potentially worrying syslog message produced by /etc/cron.daily/smail
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.961220090100.10703G-100000@hammer.chu.cam.ac.uk>
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Package: smail
Version: 3.2-3

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# Run the Smail error checking script and rotate the logfiles.
# We have to rotate the logs as root as otherwise we can't fix the
# timestamps, and so we might as well add the checkerr script here
# too.
test -f /usr/sbin/smail || exit 0
cd /tmp
su mail -c /usr/lib/smail/checkerr
^^^^^^^
set -e
cd /var/log/smail
savelog -u root -g mail -m 644 -c 7 logfile paniclog >/dev/null
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

causes 

"Dec 20 06:52:25 hammer su: (to mail)  on "

in the syslog.

A simple request - could something like

"echo Cron job - running checkerr as mail | logger"

be added so the unmarked "su" is a bit less worrying?

-- System Information
Debian Release: 1.2
Kernel Version: Linux hammer 2.0.27 #12 Wed Dec 4 14:40:24 GMT 1996 i486

Versions of the packages smail depends on:
libc5   Version: 5.4.13-1
libgdbm1        Version: 1.7.3-11
cron    Version: 3.0pl1-patched1

-- 
Steve McIntyre, CURS Secretary      "Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky,"
93sam@eng.cam.ac.uk   "Tongue-tied & twisted, Just an earth-bound misfit, I..."
Churchill College    <a href=http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~93sam/>my home page</a>
Cambridge, UK     <a href=http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~93sam/comp/>My PC page</a>