at: job name should be displayed in output from `ps'

[Xeno Campanoli]

Make a simple bash script:

#!/bin/bash
# a script called mess.bash
while :
do
date >>/tmp/mess.lst
sleep 1
done
----snip----
Run this interactively and you can tail /tmp/mess.lst until you end the job, but if you: at -f mess.bash now, then you get something that goes forever and cannot be stopped by mere mortals, apparently. If you kill with atrm jobno, that job goes away, but the /tmp/mess.lst continues to be written to until you reboot. It shows no listing that I am able to discern on ps auxw output. I have tried it on both server and desktop, and it fails the same way. Presumably this is a security problem also, as it someone does break in, they can easily install a worm that will never be seen be either a novice, or a fairly experienced user like myself.

[Xeno Campanoli (xeno)]

Looks like it actually shows up as just plain "sh" in ps auxw. Too bad it could not be seen as the name of the script. Very hard to find.

[Kees Cook (kees)]

Thanks for your bug report! I'm not classifying this as a security issue, but it is perhaps a bug with how at executes shell scripts. It's not missing, but it is pretty clear something is running, and by who:

 $ pstree -lup | grep -- -at
         |-atd(8848,daemon)---atd(16284)---sh(16285,kees)---sleep(16484)
 $ cat /proc/16285/cmdline; echo ''
 sh

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Debian maintainer confirms all information is in the bug, so marking Triaged.