permission problem with os.setuid

[Benjamin Niemann]

Michele Simionato wrote:
> Benjamin Niemann <b.niemann at betternet.de> wrote in message news:<cieb24$d6s$1 at online.de>...
> 
>>Once a process is running as nobody (or any other non-root user account), you 
>>cannot simple change the uid - that's a (very important) feature not a bug! To 
>>change the uid you have to be root first, 'sudo' may help you - though I don't 
>>know about the details how this works...
>>Possible pseudocode (and by pseudo I mean pseudo ;)
>>
>>if os.getuid() == 0: # I'm root
>>   os.setuid(501)
>>elif os.getuid() != 501:
>>   os.exec*("sudo", "myscript.py") # script is restarted, now as root
>>
>>assert os.getuid() == 501
> 
> 
> Uhm ... I wanted somewhat to avoid "sudo". Anyway, at the end I have decided
> to change the design so that the script is always run as nobody.
> This solves as well other issues and I am happy with it.
...and is the best solution. As long as it doesn't need more rights than 
'no'body, there's no point in running it as 'some'body.