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Date:      Mon, 27 Jul 1998 11:30:30 -0700 (PDT)
From:      "Jan B. Koum " <jkb@best.com>
To:        Sheldon Hearn <axl@iafrica.com>
Cc:        security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: files in /var/log 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.980727112528.29202C-100000@shell6.ba.best.com>
In-Reply-To: <24385.901543204@iafrica.com>

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On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, Sheldon Hearn wrote:
>
>On Mon, 27 Jul 1998 03:03:28 MST, "Jan B. Koum " wrote:
>
>> 	Also, would it make more sence to ship /var/log/messages o-r by
>> default? Why do we want all world to know what goes into our
>> /var/log/messages files?
>
>By the same token, what _don't_ you want your users to see? As a
>non-administrative user on several FreeBSD systems, I would be most
>disappointed if my read access to maillog and messages were revoked.


	There are many reasons. With /var/log/maillog it is privacy
issues: do you really want everyone on your system to know you sent mail
to sales@class-sex-toys.com or that you are exchanging mail with your
competitor.
	With /var/log/messages -- well, there is NOTHING there that
average user needs. If you are an admin, you are most likely in the wheel
group already and should have read access to /var/log/messages w/o doing
su(1). People sometimes might enter their password at the login: prompt --
do you want all your users to read this? Do you want all your users to
know other similar information? If so, chmod a+r /var/log/messages on your
system. I still think by default we should ship /var/log/* files group
read and world nothing.

-- Yan

>
>Of course, if there are files that contain information you feel should
>be hidden for reasons relating to system security, that's something you
>should say. Perhaps you could explain the background of your query,
>particularly what information concerns you?
>
>Ciao,
>Sheldon.
>
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