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Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:57:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
To: Xantius <xantius AT xantius DOT com>
cc: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Minicom for Cygwin
In-Reply-To: <40D1E13D.4000603@xantius.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0406171431370.3356@slinky.cs.nyu.edu>
References: <40D0AA23 DOT 8040105 AT xantius DOT com> <20040616202356 DOT GE1671 AT ata DOT cs DOT hun DOT edu DOT tr> <40D19EF7 DOT 2000402 AT xantius DOT com> <4481 DOT 10 DOT 0 DOT 0 DOT 5 DOT 1087495339 DOT squirrel AT 10 DOT 0 DOT 0 DOT 5> <40D1E13D DOT 4000603 AT xantius DOT com>
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On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, Xantius wrote:

> chris<at>equate<dot>dyndns<dot>org wrote:
>
> >>Baurjan Ismagulov wrote:
> >>
> >>>Hello, Xantius!
> >>>
> >>>On Wed, Jun 16, 2004 at 02:14:27PM -0600, Xantius wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Please let me know if you have questions, if people are still
> >>>>interested in minicom, etc.
> >>>
> >>>Definitely. I'm personally accustomed to kermit, but I would love to see
> >>>minicom as a cygwin package, installable via setup. These times I'm kind
> >>>of busy, but I'll ask my colleagues to test it.
> >>>
> >>>With kind regards,
> >>>Baurjan.
> >>
> >>It seemed that previously there were a few people asking for minicom to
> >>be put into the cygwin release, but no response yet from the cygwin
> >>team.  I'd be glad to work with them to get it setup, because it'd make
> >>life a lot easier for people.  Any Cygwin gods listening?   :-)
> >
> >I'd love to have it as a cygwin package..
> >I did manage to get it to compile myself, but I couldn't get it to start,
> >as it refused to go past the stage where I had to be root to set up a
> >config, which isn't really an option in cygwin..
> >On that note.. How did you get round it? :-)
> >
> >Chris
>
> I was able to setup a root user on my system.  It was a PITA, but it did
> work.  There was a howto out there somewhere that I followed.
> Unfortunatly I can't find it again, so I can't tell you where it was.
> I'll post it if I find it.
>
> Xantius

Well, there are some instructions for setting up a root user at
<http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/ntsec.html#NTSEC-SIDS>...  However, most
of the time it's not necessary to be root.  In fact, some programs simply
check if the current user has UID of 0 (which is wrong in Cygwin for
several reasons).  Most of the Cygwin ports of programs that do this check
have it commented out for Cygwin.  For examples, see the sources if
inetutils, openssh, etc.  Others (e.g., fetchmail, cron, inetutils, login)
have Cygwin-specific checks for the UID of the SYSTEM user, which is 18 by
default (though not always).  Yet others (e.g., apache, php) still have
the original checks of the form "if (geteuid())" here and there, which I
think is erroneous.  It really depends on the individual packages, but
most of the time it's better to simply attempt the operation and process
the error code instead of checking blindly for being root.  If you intend
to package minicom for Cygwin, I suggest considering very carefully
whether it's really necessary to check for root.

HTH,
	Igor
-- 
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