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Date:      Sun, 8 Aug 1999 20:47:19 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
To:        John Baldwin <jobaldwi@vt.edu>
Cc:        Anthony Kimball <alk@pobox.com>, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: group bits
Message-ID:  <199908090047.UAA17328@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199908090034.UAA15145@smtp3.erols.com>
References:  <14250.25026.756025.612481@avalon.east> <199908090034.UAA15145@smtp3.erols.com>

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<<On Sun, 08 Aug 1999 20:34:01 -0400 (EDT), John Baldwin <jobaldwi@vt.edu> said:

[Lines reformatted.  Next time, please fill your lines to 72
characters or less.]

> *Bzzzt* wrong!  Sudo lets you specify which user a user can run a
> command as.  You could create a sudo user pppuser, for instance, and
> have the people in the pppgroup group be able to run commands as
> pppuser.  Then they are not running commands as root.  Read the man
> page next time.

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with Anthony Kimball's stated
desire, which was to allow members of his sysadmin group to edit PPP
configuration files *within their existing editor sessions* and
without needing to unnecessarily gain additional privilege.  The
standard UNIX privilege model was working just fine, until the PPP
program decided to substitute its judgment for that of the sysadmin.

Fascist file permission policies often annoy as much as they help,
particularly in large installations with multiple technically competent
sysadmins.  (Yes, we really do want /etc/aliases to be world-writable!
The only reason anyone has an account on the machine is to edit
/etc/aliases!)

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman   | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
wollman@lcs.mit.edu  | O Siem / The fires of freedom 
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA|                     - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick


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