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Date:      Mon, 20 Aug 2001 20:40:37 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Tom <tom@uniserve.com>
To:        Eugene Grosbein <eugen@svzserv.kemerovo.su>
Cc:        stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: stale entries in utmp (security issue?)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.10108202039170.62960-100000@athena.uniserve.ca>
In-Reply-To: <3B81D71B.B099197F@svzserv.kemerovo.su>

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On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Eugene Grosbein wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> 1. login as root
> 2. type 'login -f username' when username is valid name of user that is
> not logged now
> 3. type 'logout'
> 4. Now you are root but command 'w' does not say so (security?)
> 5. type 'logout'
> 6. Now command 'w' says user 'username' is still logged but it has no
> processes.

  Since the root user can just delete the utmp file, there is not too much
to be done about this.  Some UNIX systems have gone to a utmp API and an
utmp server to maintain the logged in user state better.


Tom


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