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Date:      Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:14:50 +0100
From:      Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl>
To:        joeb <joeb@a1poweruser.com>
Cc:        "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD. ORG" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: restrict FreeBSD users to their home directory
Message-ID:  <20081026131450.GA82837@slackbox.xs4all.nl>
In-Reply-To: <NBECLJEKGLBKHHFFANMBGECCCMAA.joeb@a1poweruser.com>
References:  <20081026085332.GA97254@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <NBECLJEKGLBKHHFFANMBGECCCMAA.joeb@a1poweruser.com>

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On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 08:19:51PM +0800, joeb wrote:
<snip>
>> > I don't want them to be able see any system directories or other users?
>>=20
>> User directories are by default both owned by the user and belong to the
>> user's group. So you can set the umask for every user so that their
>> files are not accessible to others.
>>=20
>> You cannot block read and execute access to a lot of system files
>> (binaries, libraries, /usr/[local/]share/) without making the system
>> useless.
>>=20
>> What is the problem you're trying to solve? Blocking read access to
>> system files is almost certainly the wrong solution.
>>=20
> Want to keep all the users from being able to see anything outside of
> their home directory using gnome or kde desktop.=20

I ask again, why?=20

As outlined above, you can easily keep users from poking around in
other's files.

Realize that if users cannot read anything outside their home directory, th=
ey
cannot start programs in the system directories!=20

And since normal users do not have write access to system directories or
files, they can do little harm. System files that users shouldn't have
access to (e.g. /etc/master.passwd) are already chmod-ed so that only
root has access.

You could put every user in a jail(8), but that would be a significant
effort depending on the amount of applications they need.=20

Realize that if the users have physical access to the machine, these
security measures are _useless_. A hostile user could take out the
harddisk, put it in a machine where he has a root account and read all
the disk's contents (unless it's encrypted).

Roland
--=20
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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