Comments on: less, sudo, and /dev/null: Permission denied http://haxx.sinequanon.net/2009/03/less-sudo-and-devnull-permission-denied/ Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:42:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Jesper http://haxx.sinequanon.net/2009/03/less-sudo-and-devnull-permission-denied/comment-page-1/#comment-877 Jesper Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:22:06 +0000 http://haxx.sinequanon.net/?p=150#comment-877 Interesting, thanks for the analysis. I just stumbled on this problem myself. Scenario: $ export LESSHISTFILE=/dev/null $ sudo -s # history|less (or any other invocation of less I guess) *poof* /dev/null is 700, thus unusable for non-root users. I guess the sudo -s carried over the LESSHISTFILE variable to the privileged shell, and less got a bit too eager about permissions on what it believed to be its history file. Interesting, thanks for the analysis. I just stumbled on this problem myself.

Scenario:
$ export LESSHISTFILE=/dev/null
$ sudo -s
# history|less (or any other invocation of less I guess)
*poof* /dev/null is 700, thus unusable for non-root users.

I guess the sudo -s carried over the LESSHISTFILE variable to the privileged shell, and less got a bit too eager about permissions on what it believed to be its history file.

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