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Date:      Fri, 22 Jun 2001 18:59:12 +0200
From:      "Karsten W. Rohrbach" <karsten@rohrbach.de>
To:        Nick Sayer <nsayer@quack.kfu.com>
Cc:        Nuno Teixeira <nuno.mailinglists@pt-quorum.com>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: /var/mail permissions: 0755 or 01777 ?
Message-ID:  <20010622185912.T64624@mail.webmonster.de>
In-Reply-To: <3B33763B.5060706@quack.kfu.com>; from nsayer@quack.kfu.com on Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 09:45:47AM -0700
References:  <20010621214821.C376-100000@gateway.bogus> <20010622164453.J64624@mail.webmonster.de> <3B33763B.5060706@quack.kfu.com>

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Nick Sayer(nsayer@quack.kfu.com)@2001.06.22 09:45:47 +0000:
>=20
>=20
> Karsten W. Rohrbach wrote:
>=20
> > Nuno Teixeira(nuno.mailinglists@pt-quorum.com)@2001.06.21 21:51:34 +000=
0:
> >=20
> >>Hello to all,
> >>
> >>The FreeBSD default permissions for /var/mail are 0755.
> >>
> >>Why is that PINE says that the /var/mail directory is vulnerable and it
> >>says to change it to 01777
>=20
>=20
> 1777 makes it possible for users to create files in /var/mail. The good=
=20
> news is that they can make lock files, which make "simultaneous"=20
> delivery and reading more reliable. The bad news is that they can make=20
> files named like other people's mailfiles. This can either be an attack=
=20
> on their reader of choice or a denial of service, depending on how smart=
=20
> the client and MDA are.

that is, why i consequently killed /var/mail delivery on all of the
systems i administer (administrate? whatever)...

> As such, /var/mail is A Bad Thing. Putting mail into a file in the=20
> user's home directory is much safer. But the spec is too old to change=20
> by this point. So the best idea is to dispense with Unix formatted mail=
=20
> files alltogether. Thus this advice:
>=20
>=20
> > use Maildir
> > faster, simpler, secure -- simply put: better ;-)
>=20
>=20
> cyrus is better still, so long as you don't mind _only_ being able to=20
> use IMAP to play with your mail. Cyrus is particularly good for=20
> companies, as lmtp deliveries result in multiple ccs being hard links=20
> rather than separate copies. Great for when Marketing sends 20 copies of=
=20
> a 50M powerpoint presentation. :-)

indeed, but as you said, imap only. i switched to multiple boxes with
qmtp transport and big mail volumes, in other words: i hit the problem
with iron ;-)

> As for MUAs, nothing I've tried has beaten Netscape 4.x yet, although I=
=20

netscape mangles headers. thus, netscape is bad, IMVHO.

> have switched over to Mozilla and it is close. For non-GUI, I prefer=20
> pine despite its tarnished security reputation. Surprisingly enough, a=20

over the past years i started to hate pine with all the security flaws
and other operational problem that arise (mainly lack of support for
maildir).

for my fellow *bsd shell people, mutt does the best job and even newbies
to unix and the like take a preconfigured muttrc and there they go.
my personal mutt config is linked from my homepage and from the mutt
faq, so you might give it a spin (configured vs. unconfigured)...

> close second place behind Mozilla for me is SquirrelMail in a web=20
> browser. It really is good, believe it or not. I would make a port for=20
> it, but it's sort of pointless as it's just a bunch of php scripts you=20
> unpack into your www data direectory (www.squirrelmail.org if you are=20
> curious).

heard about that, gonna try it out on some intranet server next week.

/k

--=20
> If it ain't broke, overclock it!
KR433/KR11-RIPE -- WebMonster Community Founder -- nGENn GmbH Senior Techie
http://www.webmonster.de/ -- ftp://ftp.webmonster.de/ -- http://www.ngenn.n=
et/
karsten&rohrbach.de -- alpha&ngenn.net -- alpha&scene.org -- catch@spam.de
GnuPG 0x2964BF46 2001-03-15 42F9 9FFF 50D4 2F38 DBEE  DF22 3340 4F4E 2964 B=
F46
Please do not remove my address from To: and Cc: fields in mailing lists. 1=
0x

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