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Comparing rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.pod (file contents):
Revision 1.85 by root, Mon Jan 16 15:12:48 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.87 by root, Tue Jan 17 16:22:41 2006 UTC

… …
194C<--enable-everything> (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of 194C<--enable-everything> (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
195encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used). 195encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
196 196
197=item I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe? 197=item I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
198 198
199Likely not. While I honestly try to make it secure, and am probably not 199It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
200bad at it, I think it is simply unreasonable to expect all of freetype 200install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
201+ fontconfig + xft + xlib + perl + ... + rxvt-unicode itself to all be
202secure. Also, rxvt-unicode disables some options when it detects that it
203runs setuid or setgid, which is not nice. Besides, with the embedded perl
204interpreter the possibility for security problems easily multiplies.
205 201
206Elevated privileges are only required for utmp and pty operations on some 202When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
207systems (for example, GNU/Linux doesn't need any extra privileges for 203into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
208ptys, but some need it for utmp support). It is planned to mvoe this into 204systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
209a forked handler process, but this is not yet done. 205immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
206privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
207things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
210 208
211So, while setuid/setgid operation is supported and not a problem on your 209This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very early
212typical single-user-no-other-logins unix desktop, always remember that 210and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before main(), or
213its an awful lot of code, most of which isn't checked for security issues 211things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should result in very
214regularly. 212little risk.
215 213
216=item When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? 214=item When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
217 215
218The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available 216The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
219as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often arises). 217as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often arises).
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2046 2044
2047Add support for a very unobtrusive, plain-looking scrollbar that 2045Add support for a very unobtrusive, plain-looking scrollbar that
2048is the favourite of the rxvt-unicode author, having used it for 2046is the favourite of the rxvt-unicode author, having used it for
2049many years. 2047many years.
2050 2048
2051=item --enable-half-shadow (default: off)
2052
2053Make shadows on the scrollbar only half the normal width & height.
2054only applicable to rxvt scrollbars.
2055
2056=item --enable-ttygid (default: off) 2049=item --enable-ttygid (default: off)
2057 2050
2058Change tty device setting to group "tty" - only use this if 2051Change tty device setting to group "tty" - only use this if
2059your system uses this type of security. 2052your system uses this type of security.
2060 2053

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