Why is urxvtd(1) suid root?

[Jose]

I just started using urxvtd(1) and noticed that if I add it to my .xinitrc it spawns two processes, one as my user and another as root. Anyone know why? Seems like an unnecessary security risk.

 

[scottro]

I don't have an answer, but I believe the urxvt main creator is often on irc (libera chat) on a channel called, (I think) #urxvt. I haven't been, but a friend used to go there frequently, and I believe they would respond reasonably quickly.
I haven't used it in awhile, having switched to alacritty, so I can't give any better answer than above. :-(

 

[ptx]

The urxvt(1) man page mentions something about it:

LOGIN STAMP
urxvt tries to write an entry into the utmp(5) file so that it can be
seen via the who(1) command, and can accept messages. To allow this
feature, urxvt may need to be installed setuid root on some systems or
setgid to root or to some other group on others.

That does seems unnecessarily risky just for that feature.

Also, utmp(5) was apparently removed in FreeBSD 9.0 according to the release notes, so I don't know if the described feature even works or if the urxvt documentation is out of date:

The utmp(5) user accounting database has been replaced by utmpx(3). User accounting utilities will now use utmpx database files exclusively.