Q:  In my application, I invoke other commands and programs by using system() or other relatives like popen(), execl() .  Sometimes when debugging my application, I run into this error message:

	sh: privileges disabled because of outstanding IPC access to task

What does it mean and what can I do about it?

A:  This has to do with an unfortunate interaction between gdb and setuid program execution.    When gdb is debugging a process, it owns the exception ports of that process.  When that process forks a child process, gdb would own the exception ports of that child process as well.   Because of security issues, the kernel disallows gdb from owning the exceptions ports of a child process that is setuid.  When you attempt this, the kernel generates the privileges error message and the system() call fails.

There will be no conflict outside the debugger and you can run gdb as root as a workaround for debugging.

QA849

Valid for 1.0, 2.0, 3.0