Panzer Boy wrote: > >: It should be possible to have a temporary directory for each user, >: such as /tmp/username (or any other place you care to put it). > >: This would fix a great many problems, and apart from UNIX tradition, >: I see no reason against it. > >Just the easy sharing of files, and why make /tmp/username, why not >/home/username... :) Easy sharing of files is no problem: have one /tmp/common. /home/username: Well, I believe quite a few sites periodically clean out /tmp (at least on each reboot); I suspect fewer sites clean out /home that way :-) Sticky bit on /tmp: it goes a long way towards a solution, but numerous denial of service attacks are still possible. What about "touch /tmp/mbox.username", to name a simple one? How many programs open a file with a predictable name in /tmp, and neglect to do an open(..., O_CREAT|O_EXCL)? -- Thomas Koenig, Thomas.Koenig@ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet. The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic diagram.