[R-SIG-Mac] New message from OS (Mountain Lion) with system command

[peter dalgaard]

On Sep 1, 2012, at 19:30 , Dennis Fisher wrote:

> Colleagues,
> 
> I recently upgraded my OS to Mountain Lion.  Previously, when ran R from a terminal and I issued the command:
> 	PSOUTPUT	<- system("ps", intern=TRUE)
> the output returned without a problem.
> 
> Since upgrading to Mountain Lion (R 2.15.1), the same command returns the message:
> 	dyld: DYLD_ environment variables being ignored because main executable (/bin/ps) is setuid or setgid 
> Issuing the "ps" command directly from the terminal or from Rgui does not create the same behavior.
> 
> I tracked the problem down to the following.  Running R in a terminal:
> 	> grep("DYLD", system("set", intern=T), value=T)
> 	 [1] "DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/lib/x86_64" 
> Executing the same command from Rgui:
> 	> grep("DYLD", system("set", intern=T), value=T) 
> 	character(0) 
> And, in a terminal:
> 	set | grep DYLD 
> returns nothing.
> 
> It appears that R64, but not Rgui, sets DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH.  Can anyone offer an explanation?  I discovered that:
> 	Sys.unsetenv("DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH") 
> prevents the problem.  Do I incur any hidden risks by executing that command?
> 

Well, something could be using the path.... If it's not there in R.app, I have a hunch that nothing actually _is_ using it, but you need a better expert than me to be sure (Simon?).

Anyways, a bit of Googling indicates that this has been an annoyance for others as well (e.g., affecting sudo for MySQL users), and that it is fixed in the 10.8.1 upgrade of  Mountain Lion, so perhaps just wait it out?

(I sincerely hope that only the warning is new and that setuid programs always have ignored the dynamic library path. Otherwise it would be a security hole the size of a truck...)

-pd 

> Dennis
> 
> Dennis Fisher MD
> P < (The "P Less Than" Company)
> Phone: 1-866-PLessThan (1-866-753-7784)
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> www.PLessThan.com
> 
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-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com