  Subprocesses, Persona Services, Security? 
 The Question is:
 
I am trying to create a subprocess under some body elses account, using the
 sys$persona_create and sys$persona_assume and then a vfork()-execv()
 combination to start another executable. This other executable has
 read,write,execute permission to everybody,
 so, I would not expect the "Not owner" error code I get from execv(). This
 error message goes away IF I give the user thats being impersonated SYSPRV
 rights.
So, my question is: if the executable is readable and executable by the world,
 why does the impersonated user need such high authority, and how can I solve
 this such that SYSPRV is no longer necessary?
(Replacing the forkv()-execv() code with a lib$spawn also doesn't help; if the
 impersonated user doesn't have SYSPRV lib$spawn returns SS$_NOPRIV (=36).)
 
Thanks
 
 The Answer is :
 
  You will want to use the lib$spawn or sys$creprc calls directly, as
  these provide far better diagnostics -- as you have clearly found.
 
  The OpenVMS Wizard prefers to avoid the fork operation, as sharing a
  virtual address space and sharing process control, contextual and
  related data structures is a particularly ugly implementation.
 
  To track the particular security check that triggers a protection
  error, please enable and use OpenVMS security alarms and/or OpenVMS
  security auditing.
 
  Mixing process ownerships within one job tree is hazardous and
  can and often does lead to various access failures related to
  resources shared among the subprocesses in the job tree -- the
  parent and subprocess communicate via mailboxes, and also share
  the job logical name table.  The OpenVMS Wizard does not generally
  recommend configurations with mixed ownerships within a job tree.
 
  The persona settings deliberately do not survive an image rundown.
  The typical approach for creating a process under another username
  is the persona services and per-threads security, or the use of
  persona services and $creprc.
 
  If you want to use the per-threads security mechanisms that are
  available in OpenVMS V7.2 and later, please see the OpenVMS
  documentation set for details on threading, upcalls, and related
  topics.
 
  The vfork()-execv() sequence is not the equivilent of a process
  spawn operation (subprocess creation), it performs an image rundown
  and an an image startup.
 
  Please also see topics (4647) and (6099) for some details on mixing
  threading and asynchronous (AST) programming constructs, and please
  see topics (1661) and (2681) for details on programming errors and
  on requirements for shared memory operations.
 
 Answer written or last revised on  9-JAN-2002 
