From owner-freebsd-security Sat Jul 11 21:39:21 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA01665 for freebsd-security-outgoing; Sat, 11 Jul 1998 21:39:21 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from aniwa.sky (aniwa.actrix.gen.nz [203.96.56.186]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA01633 for ; Sat, 11 Jul 1998 21:39:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from andrew@squiz.co.nz) Received: from localhost (andrew@localhost) by aniwa.sky (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA11697; Sun, 12 Jul 1998 16:35:48 +1200 (NZST) (envelope-from andrew@squiz.co.nz) X-Authentication-Warning: aniwa.sky: andrew owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 16:35:48 +1200 (NZST) From: Andrew McNaughton X-Sender: andrew@aniwa.sky Reply-To: andrew@squiz.co.nz To: "Kent S. Gordon" cc: jehamby@manta.jpl.nasa.gov, 026809r@dragon.acadiau.ca, security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RootRunner (admin GUI w/o security holes?) In-Reply-To: <199807120035.TAA10008@soccer.ksg.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sat, 11 Jul 1998, Kent S. Gordon wrote: > Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 19:35:38 -0500 (CDT) > From: "Kent S. Gordon" > To: jehamby@manta.jpl.nasa.gov > Cc: 026809r@dragon.acadiau.ca, security@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: Re: RootRunner (admin GUI w/o security holes?) > > >>>>> "jehamby" == Jake Hamby writes: > > > On Fri, 10 Jul 1998, Michael Richards wrote: > >> Why not just use ssh to forward your root x connections via an > >> encrypted connection. All of your problems go away. You are > >> even secure from network sniffers because the entire data > >> stream is encrypted. > > > Well, I definitely want to support ssh to allow secure remote > > administration (where it would replace su or sudo in the scheme > > I described), but I'm really loath to run any part of the GUI as > > uid 0, if it's at all possible to avoid. While it's probably > > not a security hole, per se, my biggest problem is the one I > > already mentioned of how to start the program from the "start > > menu" of your favorite windowmanager, without having to pop up > > an ugly xterm window to ask for the root password. > > You could always create an no password entry in sudo for these cases > or a special suid binary that invokes the program. I have used no > password entry in sudo for this in the past. > > > -Jake That gives finer control over access, but otherwise I don't think it's much different from suid. I suspect the only way to get a uid = 0 backend and a uid != 0 frontend is to run them as separate processes with some sort of communication channel. Andrew To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe security" in the body of the message