openssh unix dev - Dec 1999 - OpenSSH-1.12pre15: fun with ulimit

Since upgrading from pre11 (aack, that was old!) to pre15, i get the
following message when logging in via ssh to a box with the OpenSSH
server running:

  ulimit: cannot raise limit: Operation not permitted

I've traced this to the following command in /etc/profile:

  ulimit -c 1000000

It seems as if sshd is turning off core dumps for the shell session it
spawns.  Any idea what change caused this, and whether this particular
effect is reversible without compromising security?  A cursory
examination of the ChangeLog wasn't particularly revealing to me.

Red Hat Linux/x86 5.2, glibc-2.0.7, OpenSSL-0.9.4
OpenSSH built with egcs-1.1.2 (egcs -pipe -O2 -mpentium -fno-strength-reduce)
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --with-tcp-wrappers

-- 
jim knoble
jmknoble at pobox.com

On Sun, 5 Dec 1999, Jim Knoble wrote:
> Since upgrading from pre11 (aack, that was old!) to pre15, i get the
> following message when logging in via ssh to a box with the OpenSSH
> server running:
> 
>   ulimit: cannot raise limit: Operation not permitted
> 
> I've traced this to the following command in /etc/profile:
> 
>   ulimit -c 1000000
> 
> It seems as if sshd is turning off core dumps for the shell session it
> spawns.  Any idea what change caused this, and whether this particular
> effect is reversible without compromising security?  A cursory
> examination of the ChangeLog wasn't particularly revealing to me.
Are you sure that it is not PAM which is setting the limit? A quick
grepping through the code shows that ssh will set the limit, but sshd
does not.

Damien 

--
| "Bombay is 250ms from New York in the new world order" - Alan Cox
| Damien Miller - http://www.mindrot.org/
| Email: djm at mindrot.org (home) -or- djm at ibs.com.au (work)