From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Nov 12 2:36: 3 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from relay3-gui.server.ntli.net (relay3-gui.server.ntli.net [194.168.4.200]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48CA937B417 for ; Mon, 12 Nov 2001 02:35:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from pc3-card3-0-cust122.cdf.cable.ntl.com ([62.254.251.122] helo=rhadamanth.private.submonkey.net ident=exim) by relay3-gui.server.ntli.net with esmtp (Exim 3.03 #2) id 163ERT-0004HB-00; Mon, 12 Nov 2001 10:35:51 +0000 Received: from setantae by rhadamanth.private.submonkey.net with local (Exim 3.33 #1) id 163EP0-000Kkc-00; Mon, 12 Nov 2001 10:33:18 +0000 Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 10:33:18 +0000 From: setantae To: Mike Meyer Cc: Walter Hop , questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: does /etc HAVE to be world readable? Message-ID: <20011112103318.GA79662@rhadamanth> Mail-Followup-To: setantae , Mike Meyer , Walter Hop , questions@freebsd.org References: <57002037@toto.iv> <15343.23465.798379.106042@guru.mired.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <15343.23465.798379.106042@guru.mired.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.23.1i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, Nov 11, 2001 at 11:18:33PM -0600, Mike Meyer wrote: > Walter Hop types: > > QuickQuestion(tm): does /etc HAVE to be world readable? > > Of course not. In fact, about the only thing that has to exist to boot > unix is the kernel and /bin/sh. The question is, what's going to break > if you remove - or lock - the things in question. > > After a quick scan of /etc, assuming you're running the standard base > system tools, you can expect: 1) Files will be listed by user/group > numbers instead of names if programs can't read /etc/passwd. 2) > Anything trying to reach something else on the net will break because > it can't get to /etc/resolve.conf and /etc/services. 3) Daemons that > don't run as root may fail because they can't read /etc/services, > though that's probably rare. 4) Mail will break in any number of > ways. X won't be startable by users. 5) Some man pages will become > inaccessible. 6) User programs that print won't be able to tell what > printers are available. Well, actually, all of those programs in theory already know what files they are looking for, so /etc doesn't have to be world readable for those reasons, since as long as it's world executable all of the above should still work. However, it still strikes me as a really bad idea. Ceri -- keep a mild groove on To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message