Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 23:45:17 -0800 (PST) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> To: Harry_M_Leitzell@cmu.edu (Harry M. Leitzell) Cc: freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Curious about 'hoststat' Message-ID: <199903300745.XAA11308@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.96L.990330015216.2230A-100000@unix8.andrew.cmu.edu> from "Harry M. Leitzell" at "Mar 30, 99 02:02:24 am"
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> Well, I am going through a FreeBSD machine and removing the suid
> bits on programs that have no purpose having them for a simple user host
> machine. Going through /var/log/setuid.today and changing the permissions
> on the programs seems like a good idea until I got to 'hoststat'.
>
> -r-sr-xr-x 5 root wheel 290016 Feb 15 05:45:23 1999 /usr/bin/hoststat
>
> I usually go through the man pages for a program that has a suid
> bit by default to make sure no user actually could have a use for it.
> Only this doesn't have a man page. A keyword search turns up nothing.
> Running it does seemingly nothing. It intrigues me that a progam could be
> suid 0 by default and not have any documentation on it. While the
> experienced person might just CVS the source, deduce the meaning of it
> from the code, some of us don't have the experience or time to do so. I
> was just thinking if there isn't sufficient documentation on the program,
> should it be installed suid 0 by default?
It should have a man page.. but it is documented in
/usr/share/doc/smm/08.sendmailop/. Which says this
about it:
1.3.4. /usr/bin/hoststat
The hoststat command should just be a link to
sendmail, in a fashion similar to newaliases. This
command lists the status of the last mail transac-
tion with all remote hosts. It functions only when
the HostStatusDirectory option is set.
It is a hardlink to /usr/sbin/sendmail, and thus is why it has
suid on it...
--
Rod Grimes - KD7CAX - (RWG25) rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com
Accurate Automation, Inc. Reliable computers for FreeBSD
http://www.aai.dnsmgr.com
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