Controlling the LIBPATH environment variable under AIX.

[imarsha6 at csc.com.au]

G'day all,

On the system that we are using, our developers and operators require
access to start and stop processes as a central (non-root) user, for which
we don't want to distribute the password.  Unfortunately, the security
feature of sudo on AIX to clear the LIBPATH environment variable is causing
some of the programs to fail on library dependencies.

After much searching through documentation, I have been unable to find a
way to disable this behaviour. The optimum solution for us would to have a
flag that we can specify in the "sudoers" file on a per-command basis that
enables the pass-through of the LIBPATH information. This variable would be
off by default (to match the current behaviour.) I do not believe that (if
used properly) this would introduce a major security risk (please inform me
if this is not the case!)

Is it possible to achieve the above requirements, preferably without
writing C code? If not, is there an alternative or workaround that will
allow this?

Thanks in advance,

Ian Marshall
System Administrator
Computer Sciences Corporation
476 Victoria Road, Gladesville NSW 2111
Tel: +61 (2) 9816 9798    Fax: +61 (2) 9816 9700
E-mail: imarsha6 at csc.com.au