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I’ve been ignored by post office clerks, bank tellers, and shoe salesmen, but never a computer – until now.

(master_disk)>system>openssl>bin>ssh [email protected]
You don't exist, go away!
ready 11:48:32

 

SSH needs to know who is executing it so that it can do things like read user specific configuration files in (home_dir)>.ssh. It does this by looking up the UID of the executing process and mapping that to a registration structure that includes things like the user’s home directory. If the UID doesn’t exist there is no valid mapping and SSH produces the “You don’t exist, go away” error. I should say that the SSH command in OpenSSL/SSH 2.0 produces this message.

The SSH command in the OpenVOS Internet Security Pack is not so rude. You still get an error message but at least it does not deny your existence.

(master_disk)>opt>openssl>bin>ssh [email protected]
PRIV_END: seteuid: Invalid argument.
ready 10:38:26

 

So how can you start a process with what amounts to an invalid UID? By doing a “login –module” to another system. When you do that the UID is set to -1.

 

 

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