vmware-user-suid-wrapper suid flag not set

[Martin Stolpe]

The suid flag has to be set for vmware-user-suid-wrapper in the package open-vmware-tools as this program has to be run with root privileges by a normal user.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I wonder if this is the same as LP: #1682647?

[John Wolfe (johnwvmw)]

I do not believe that this the same as LP: #1682647.

From the date of the issue - March 2013, I believe that was just before the release of Ubuntu 13.04. The README.md file at https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/ states the OVT is available from Ubuntu 14.04 and later.

So this LP bug may have been filed while the prototyping open-vm-tools packaging was being done. It also mentions that the vmware-user-suid-wrapper in "open-vm-tools" needs the SUID permission set. That binary is currently packaged in open-vm-tools-desktop, so this may indicate an early packaging with everything in a single .deb package?

The rules file (now) has

   chmod 4755 debian/*/usr/bin/-://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/vmware-user-suid-wrapper

to set the SUID permissions, and

   dh_fixperms -Xvmware-user-suid-wrapper

to retain the SUID permission.

I believe that the issue in this LP has been fixed at sometime in the past and could simply be closed. It certainly is not an issue in currently released versions of open-vm-tools supported on Ubuntu releases.