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Date:      Thu, 25 Mar 1999 17:05:18 -0500
From:      Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu>
To:        Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>, bmah@CA.Sandia.GOV (Bruce A. Mah)
Cc:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: sudo (was Re: Kerberos vs SSH)
Message-ID:  <v04011701b32060ab1ee4@[128.113.24.47]>
In-Reply-To: <199903252044.MAA02527@apollo.backplane.com>
References:  <199903252032.MAA25377@stennis.ca.sandia.gov>

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>: I'd be curious to hear what you think sudo's shortcomings are, and
>: why it merits being labeled as one of the stupidest programs you've
>: ever seen?
>
>    Simple:  Because the program is designed to poke holes through
>    root and run specified programs.  It's fairly easy to misconfigure
>    it, and there is no guarentee that the programs it runs are
>    themselves secure.  sudo opens up a whole can of potential
>    security problems.

When working with lots of sysadmin's and lots of machines, sudo
is a very useful tool.  At least, it (or programs like it) are
better than other alternatives.

It beats making executables setuid, for instance.
It beats having lots of different people with the password to
root, and the ability to run *anything* and do *anything* that
they want.

Just my 2 cents worth...

---
Garance Alistair Drosehn           =   gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer          or  drosih@rpi.edu
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute


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