From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Nov 19 23:23:21 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id XAA10418 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:23:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.webspan.net (mail.webspan.net [206.154.70.7]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA10408 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:23:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from orion.webspan.net (orion.webspan.net [206.154.70.5]) by mail.webspan.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA04858; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 02:22:17 -0500 (EST) Received: from orion.webspan.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by orion.webspan.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA07067; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 02:22:12 -0500 (EST) To: Justin Harvey cc: Michael Dillon , freebsd-isp@freebsd.org From: "Gary Palmer" Subject: Re: Stupid question no 10101 In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 15 Nov 1996 14:56:18 -1000." Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 02:22:12 -0500 Message-ID: <7065.848474532@orion.webspan.net> Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Justin Harvey wrote in message ID : > Or, yet another alternative is to use NIS, I know you said it was > insecure but you need to define 'insecue'. I bet it would be more secure > than whatever kind of password exchanging mechanism you're thining of > programming. > NIS isn't exactly 'insecure', IMO I think it's had a bad rap due to > people misconfiguring it. You can also configure NIS to share files that > are not defaulted with the package. Try sharing your password file with NIS. Basically, if you use plain old NIS, it publishes your password file (or at least the passwords of your users) to anyone who cares to look (I've been told that there is some program called `ypghost' which lets people do this). I, for one, don't want my users passwords disseminated to anyone who wants an easy back-door into our system. (and, yes, I have thought of using an access list (aka packet filter) on our Cisco gateway, but access lists can be bypassed, and it still leaves it open to all our shell users). Makes it kinda stupid to use NIS in a shadowed password environment ... Gary -- Gary Palmer FreeBSD Core Team Member FreeBSD: Turning PC's into workstations. See http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ for info