Re: [MiNT] Pgetauid/Psetauid

["Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz" <draco@obta.uw.edu.pl>]

Hi,

> > > > Hum, perhaps for the same reason it calls Pseteuid()?
> > > 
> > > It calls Pseteuid to change persona.
> > 
> > Indeed. Perhaps we should change it though - i.e. remove the explicit auid
> > calls (after they have been documented a year ago, grr) and add a line to
> > Pseteuid() which would simultanously set auid, silently failing on error.
> > For reason see below.
> 
> And I would opt for fixing the obvious bug of the interface and then
> forget about auid.

Hum... let me change my opinion once again :-) The Pget/setauid() calls
have been introduced on some purpose. There's supposedly a program called
'audit' which apparently relies on them (see /etc/passwd file in the KGMD
distribution). My proposal is: if the 'audit' thing is something useful,
we keep these calls and develop further (if necessary). If the 'audit' is
nothing useful, we remove them.
 
> > My understanding is that auid is for the following situation:
> > 
> > - someone logs as an user (euid -> 0)
> 
> ?
> The user #0 is commonly called the superuser...

Typo. Read "euid > 0".
 
> > In this case auid, if inherited by new superuser shell, still holds the
> > original user id (unless the person found a way to overwrite auid as
> > well). And call me paranoic. :-) It would be (IMHO) more useful
> > information than the id of a person who first managed to grab the keyboard
> > after the system has started successfully.
> 
> If somebody has the privilege to become the super-user, why should child
> processes know who she originally was?

To track down who hacked root account when the root was away :-)

> The su command logs every attempt
> to change persona with before/after information.  That should really be
> enough.  Otherwise we would have to discuss if Pgetauid should still be
> allowed for ordinary users.  The syslogd usually logs the same information
> in a file that is not world-readable.

Well, right.

Gtx,

--
Konrad M.Kokoszkiewicz
|mail: draco@atari.org                  |  Atari Falcon030 user   |
|http://www.obta.uw.edu.pl/~draco/      | Moderator gregis LATINE |
|http://draco.atari.org                 |       (loquentium)      |

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