Permission bug in bitlbee 1.2.4

[anonymous]

Installation was by default in two different GNU/Linux distributions (Slackware 13.0 and Debian squeeze).

Steps to reproduce:

1. Download tarball file from current bitlbee version (1.2.4) from official website.
2. Extract with tar xvfz bitlbee-1.2.4.tar.gz
3. cd bitlbee-1.2.4
4. ./configure
5. make
6. make install (as root)
7. make install-etc (as root)
8. in my case i added this line to /etc/inetd.conf:

6667 stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/bitlbee

9. Start the daemon (or restart) with:

/etc/init.d/inetutils-inetd stop /etc/init.d/inetutils-inetd start

8. launch some IRC client, connect to localhost, port 6667
9. When connected to bitlbee, try to register with:

register foobar

Bug:

You will obtain always same response: "Error while opening configuration file". After some investigations, i found that is trying to create a file in /var/lib/bitlbee/accountname.xml, however /var/lib/bitlbee does not have by default right permissions.

Workaround:

chmod 777 /var/lib/bitlbee

Fix:

I think make install should create this directory with right permissions directly to avoid confusion.

Contact:

For any further details please do not hesitate contact me on borja.tarraso.hueso@…

Thanks in advance,

Borja Tarraso

[wilmer]

We already talked about this in #bitlbee, but just to summarize..

This is not "make install"'s task. I see you're running BitlBee under the "nobody" UID. Other people may be using different UIDs (a dedicated bitlbee user for example). The permissions on /var/lib/bitlbee have to match the UID bitlbee runs at.

So that step of the configuration does *not* belong in the Makefile but in doc/INSTALL or better, the package that came with your Linux distro.

Suggestions for documentation fixes are welcome, but other than that, this is working as intended.

Note that using chmod 777 to solve permission issues is like never locking your frontdoor anymore because you keep losing the keys. Not a very good idea.

[anonymous]

I experienced the same issue with bitlbee installed from repos under Ubuntu Lucid 10.04. Solved with method above, returned permissions to normal after.

[anonymous]

is the config dir always /var/lib/bitlbee, even with default install prefix ?

[anonymous]

If you decide to use the User = bitlbee option (which is recommended) in /etc/bitlbee remember to start bitlbee as root and it will change user by itself to bitlbee. If you have started the bitlbee daemon as a regular user you will not be able to register because it cannot change over to bitlbee user.

-svavel