Question on dropping privileges

From: Aurobindo Sundaram (+1 512 331 3743) (sundaramat_private)
Date: Wed May 02 2001 - 07:45:23 PDT

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    Hi,

I'm just wondering where in the network port opening sequence it is
appropriate to drop privileges. Consider the following snippet of code and
assume we're opening a port < 1024. Obviously, we need root privileges to
bind ... when is the earliest we can drop them? See below for the choices.

Thks,
Robin


socket(Server, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto)        || die "socket: $!";
bind(Server, sockaddr_in($port, INADDR_ANY))        || die "bind: $!";
### Drop position 1

listen(Server,SOMAXCONN)                            || die "listen: $!";
### Drop position 2

for ( ; $paddr = accept(Client,Server); close Client) {
### Drop position 3
         my($port,$iaddr) = sockaddr_in($paddr);
         my $name = gethostbyaddr($iaddr,AF_INET);
         print Client "Hello there, $name, it's now ",
                         scalar localtime, $EOL;
}

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