#436 dosemu -s doesn't work

[Stas Sergeev]

[stas@lin2 /]$ dosemu -s
can't create local /root/.dosemu directory
can't create local /root/.dosemu/run directory

Running privileged (via sudo) in full feature mode
can't open "/root/.dosemu/boot.log" for writing
[stas@lin2 /]$

It shouldn't use /root, should use /home/stas

[Bart Oldeman]

sudo's behaviour has changed. You can put

Defaults env_keep += HOME

in /etc/sudoers or some file in /etc/sudoers.d to restore the old behaviour.

Either we need to document this or get the dosemu script to workaround this (say, setting DOSEMU_HOME=HOME).

[Stas Sergeev]

I think script should be changed.
The user may not want to have that setting
for every app, and dosemu can make sure
that the $HOME is accessed only after
the privs are dropped.
I wonder why sudo doesn't save it as an
ORIG_HOME to let an app to decide what
HOME it really needs.

[Bart Oldeman]

There is another method, namely to get the HOME value from
/proc/getppid()/environ.
That would help me because I often do quick tests of dosemu -s by directly typing dosemu.bin -s.

Using getpwnam()->pw_dir has the disadvantage that the HOME env var may have been manually changed by the invoking user.

[Stas Sergeev]

You mean /proc/self/environ.
I didn't know it is much different than the
current environment, but if it is...

[Bart Oldeman]

No, it's the environment of the "sudo" process that has the correct $HOME. You can check with "sudo bash".

[Stas Sergeev]

Ah, missed double 'p' in getppid(), now
everything is clear.
I guess the feature request about saving
ORIG_HOME would be a good idea.