Date: Wed, 06 Sep 1995 12:55:57 -0700 From: Paul Traina <pst@shockwave.com> To: Bill Trost <trost@cloud.rain.com> Cc: Brian Tao <taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw>, freebsd-security@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Do we *really* need logger(1)? Message-ID: <199509061955.MAA12996@precipice.shockwave.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 06 Sep 1995 11:29:20 PDT." <m0sqPDt-00004yC@cloud.rain.com>
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From: Bill Trost <trost@cloud.rain.com>
Subject: Re: Do we *really* need logger(1)?
Brian Tao writes:
it dawned on me that logger(1) could be a hacker's dream.
Logger requires no special permissions to run; anyone can run such a
program. Better yet, anyone could run such a program anywhere on the
Internet, so syslogd(8) can also be used as a remote disk-filling
service. (And, since it's UDP-based, you can't tcp-wrap it...).
Since syslogd runs as root....
Gads, why? Require that files specified in syslog.conf be writeable
by user syslog, and put user syslog in group tty (to handle broadcasts
to all users), and syslogd can setuid to syslog as soon as it has its
sockets open.
All these root-level daemons floating around is a disaster waiting to
happen. Certainly something as simple as syslog doesn't need that
kind of privilege.
Bzzzt.
If your disk fills up, you want syslog to be able to operate until it goes to
110%. Unless you run as root or modify the kernel, you lose.
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