Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 23 Jul 2001 19:34:44 +0400
From:      "Nickolay A.Kritsky" <nkritsky@internethelp.ru>
To:        "Jeroen Massar" <jeroen@unfix.org>
Cc:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re[3]: bin/22595: telnetd tricked into using arbitrary peer ip
Message-ID:  <47174164064.20010723193444@internethelp.ru>
In-Reply-To: <000f01c11379$72391a40$420d640a@HELL>
References:  <000f01c11379$72391a40$420d640a@HELL>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hello Jeroen,


Monday, July 23, 2001, 5:14:40 PM, you wrote:

JM> Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com> wrote:
>>     All very nice, guys, but not realistic.  Only FreeBSD uses an API.
>>     Third party programs access the structure directly for the most
>>     part so adding new fields to the structure will just cause more
>>     garbage to be written to the file (many third party programs 
>>     don't bother to bzero the structure before writing it out).  We 
>>     aren't going to add a separate hostname[] array... we just got
>>     through ripping out the hostname crap, because there was never 
>>     enough room in the field to actually store the FQDN, and many
>>     programs don't bother to verify the forward against the
>>     reverse anyway so the data would be suspect.  And short
>>     of making a 200+ character array to hold it, which would be masive
>>     bloat, there is no way to fit it in the structure.  If 
>> you want to store
>>     host names for posterity you will have to log-process the file and
>>     store the results somewhere else.  Every program under 
>> the sun assumes
>>     utmp is a fixed-length structure.
>> 
>>     Pretty much our only option is to extend the size of 
>> existing fields
>>     and take the 'oh hell the structure size changed' hit.

JM> So... Because they didn't account for this 40 years ago we're stuck with
JM> it??

JM> Another proposal, because I know what you mean with the 'old programs'
JM> problem which should have been fixed a long time ago with an API :)

JM> Quote from my other mail:
JM> 8<---
JM> One thing that should be considered to be done if an API is created... :
JM> make a backport to previous versions of FreeBSD and actually
JM> *BSD/Linux/* :)
JM> This also encourages program writers/maintainers to adopt it quicker, as
JM> it's less hassle for them and they don't have to make the
JM> "pre-FreeBSD-5" case or something...
JM> And the best thing of an API (if done right :): seperation of the back
JM> and the frontend... which makes changes like this even easier...
---->>8

JM> But now... Make that API log into a different way and place...
JM> We will get two wtmp/utmp files then... But then we can let the 'old'
JM> 3rd party programs log to the 'old' utmp/wtmp facility.
JM> Whenever a 'new' program using the API queries the listing function of
JM> the API then the API will simply also check the 'old' facility... Et
JM> presto ... We have a solution :)

JM> The new solution could log to a database, file whatever you'd do with
JM> it.... Just make sure that it fits into an API... :)

looks quite reasonable to me - I considered it is the common way of
such problems solving.

;-------------------------------------------
; NKritsky
; SysAdmin InternetHelp.Ru
; http://www.internethelp.ru
; mailto:nkritsky@internethelp.ru


JM> That's also one of the reasons I am kinda glad that intel simply made
JM> IA-64 not IA-32 compliant..... Away with the old stuff and backward
JM> compatibility you got emu's (or API's who know the old stuff :) for
JM> that... And Windows is going the same way too... NT != DOS ... Luckily
JM> :)

JM> Greets,
JM>  Jeroen


JM> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
JM> with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?47174164064.20010723193444>