Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 13:03:38 -0700 From: Warner Losh <imp@village.org> To: cschuber@uumail.gov.bc.ca Cc: Marc Slemko <marcs@znep.com>, security@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Vadim Kolontsov: BoS: Linux & BSD's lpr exploit Message-ID: <E0vJmI6-0000AR-00@rover.village.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 02 Nov 1996 10:33:07 PST." <199611021833.KAA00905@cwsys.cwent.com> References: <199611021833.KAA00905@cwsys.cwent.com>
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In message <199611021833.KAA00905@cwsys.cwent.com> Cy Schubert writes: : How about an LPRng port? Then it would be up to each individual : sysadmin whether to use a possibly more secure non-BSD print : subsystem or the existing insecure print subsystem. The port could : disable the BSD LPR/LPD by filing off the s and x bits. If the the : sysadmin opts to pkg_delete the LPRng package, the BSD print : subsystem would be re-enabled. If you'd like to port it, go for it. However, unless there is a good and compelling reason to disable lpr/lpd, it won't happen. They are too entrenched in the BSD culture to go away by fiat. LPRng is incompatible with LPR/LPD at the protocol level, from all I've read. It would be good to have it as a port, but too many places are using lpr/lpd in mission critical applications to just junk them. It would be a better effort, imho, to fix the security problems in lpr/lpd than to go to a new, untried system the security aspects of which are at best poorly understood (relative to lpr/lpd). I know that the OpenBSD folks have been doing security audits of the code looking for things that could run afoul in the current lpr/lpd code. Unless they give up as being an intractible problem, I'd be very leery of punting on lpr/lpd altogether. Finally, if you know of any specific weakness in lpr/lpd that hasn't been addressed, please do let me know. Saying it is insecure vaguely is not as useful as being specific :-). Warner
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