RE: rsh inetd no remote directory

["Davis, William" <wdavis01 at harris dot com>]

I am just getting started with cygwin, so I don't
know the specifics of inetutils, so I provided
some vanilla Unix answers:
   1) your home directory is whatever is in /etc/passwd
   2) you can try to change HOME, but it doesn't work
      on some shells and even if it did, where is the
      code that would do it?

Peter Buckley [mailto:peter.buckley@cportcorp.com] writes:

   I've created .rhosts, hosts.equiv and 
   hosts files in /etc/ (although I don't know 
   what these are or are for, or if I did it right, 
   I figured if I tried it and got it wrong I might 
   at least get a different error). 

You will not get an error, you just told it something
you did not mean to tell it: ~user/.rhosts says who can
be user without passwords and /etc/hosts.equiv has
global machine permissions and user mapping.  I
don't think that is your problem, but you could
try this:
   telnet sys1
   login as pbuckley
Can you get logged in?  If not, then it is a
mount problem for the home directory. If you
get a message about no home directory, using
'/', then track down the directory problem.

Assuming the login worked, execute these:
   echo + >.rhosts
   exit
   rsh -l pbuckley sys1 echo hello world
By executing the above, the echo into .rhosts
says let any user from any system anywhere
on the network (which may be the whole world)
come in without a password.  When your test
works, you should do a rm .rhosts to undo that:
If that doesn't work (and I think it won't)
then it is not a permission problem but a
mount problem when trying to come in as
something other than telnet.

Peter Buckley [mailto:peter.buckley@cportcorp.com] writes:

   But my problem is the same- I have inetutils -14 
   inetd installed as a service (inetd --install-as-service), 
   and when I try to rsh my_machine 'who' 
   (or any other command) it gives me this error 
   "No remote directory." In the rshd man page, 
   it says this error is caused by the chdir command 
   to the home directory failing. I get the same error 
   from a Solaris machine or an NT machine with cygwin. 

This message you quote means that permissions
in /etc/hosts.equiv are not denying you access
and may or may not be allowing it.  You cannot
get to .rhosts to allow access because it is in
the home directory.

Peter Buckley [mailto:peter.buckley@cportcorp.com] writes:

   Currently my home directory is on a network share, 
   which I have mounted (system, binmode) to 
   /home/pbuckley. The HOME user environment variable 
   in NT is set to /home/pbuckley. When I rsh with no 
   command (hence rlogin) it takes me to the network 
   share, //network_share/user/pbuckley. 

Do a grep on /etc/passwd for pbuckley and see what
it shows as the home directory.  Is it /home/pbuckley?
If so, then telnet into the machine as pbuckley and
stay logged in.  Do a pwd to be sure you have a home
directory.  Then do the rsh from another terminal (with
.rhosts set to + above to avoid permission issues).
If that works, then it is an automount issue.  If
that does not work, then is is an rsh issue specific
to the cygwin implementation.

Note that setting HOME on the side that is calling
rsh does not have any effect on the destination.
Also note that most Unix shells do not let you set
HOME, or ignore it if you do set it.  In csh, the
tilde character (~) takes you to your home directory
which may not be $HOME in some variations.

Peter Buckley [mailto:peter.buckley@cportcorp.com] writes:

   Can anyone tell me where to go to figure this out? 
   I tried setting the HOME environment variable to 
   a local folder, with no change in the error. I have 
   tried starting the service as myself (pbuckley) instead 
   of system, but that doesn't help.

If you set home in the shell calling rsh, it has no
effect on the other side of the network.  If you set
it in your csh .login file or your sh/ksh .profile
file, then how can the system find those files in
your home directory?  The /etc/passwd field has to
be correct and the mount has to work as above.  

Peter Buckley [mailto:peter.buckley@cportcorp.com] writes:

   Of course, the kicker is that if I start inetd from the 
   command line, rsh works fine and dandy. Any hints 
   on why it won't work when inetd is a service? Is there 
   a way that I can debug this? I haven't used gdb before, 
   but I saw someone posting about "debugging inetd" in 
   the archives.

When you run inetd from the command line, are you
running it as root?  You should be for standard Unix.
To get to root, did you login on the console or log
in as pbuckley and su to root?  If you logged in as
pbuckley, then your home directory is mounted, so
there is no mount issue.

If you try what I suggested above, I think you
will be able to figure out where the problem
is located.  Then you may need to ask a specific
question here that an expert in cygwin mount or
cygwin rsh will need to answer.

Bill Davis
wdavis01@harris.com

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