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Date:      Tue, 28 Nov 1995 16:44:07 -0700
From:      Nate Williams <nate@rocky.sri.MT.net>
To:        Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Cc:        joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: schg flag on make world in -CURRENT
Message-ID:  <199511282344.QAA18335@rocky.sri.MT.net>
In-Reply-To: <199511282137.OAA22135@phaeton.artisoft.com>
References:  <199511280747.IAA09395@uriah.heep.sax.de> <199511282137.OAA22135@phaeton.artisoft.com>

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Terry Lambert writes:
> > > 1)	Your user name must be in group "wheel" (in the file /etc/group).
> > > 
> > > 2)	Your pty must be marked "secure".
> > 
> > Sheesh.  You don't need a "secure" pty in order to su(8) on it!
> 
> No?
> 
> You should.  OK.  "su" is broken.

WHAT?!?  Terry, you're losing it.

Do you understand what the 'secure' flag means?  It means that root is
allowed to directly login via that tty/pty.  So, if you have folks who
need to come in remotely in your scheme, you need to make *ALL* of your
connections secure, which opens up a huge can of worms.

The current behavior is a mix of usefulness plus security.  The cracker
needs to break into an account which is in the 'wheel' group, and then
they need to crack the root passwd w/out raising suspicions in the
logfiles while every failed attempt to 'su' to root is logged to the
screen, the logfile, and any user already su'd to root on the box.

"su" is most definitely not broken.  If you want more security, you'll
need to verify remote users better, not modify "su".




Nate



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