howto - running maxima as a server on *nix


On Mon, 12 Apr 2010, Benjamin Vanheuverzwijn wrote:

< On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Leo Butler <l.butler at ed.ac.uk> wrote:
< 
<       < 2) configure the maxima service
<       < add "maxima????? 12345/tcp?????????? # maxima" to /etc/services
<       < create the file "/etc/xinetd.d/maxima" with the content:
<       < ?service maxima
<       < ?{
<       < ???? socket_type???? = stream
<       < ???? wait??????????? = no
<       < ???? user??????????? = root
<       < ???? server????????? = /usr/bin/maxima
<       < ???? server_args???? = --quiet
<       < ?}
< 
< I'm not sure you want to run maxima as root. You've created a big
< security hole, since maxima can spawn a shell with root privileges.
< 
< 
< Good point, i forgot to specify this.
 
I think that you could run as 'nobody' or you could create a 
special 'maxima' user with restricted privileges.

Leo
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