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From: jch@dyfed.rdg.dec.com (John Haxby)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: Ultrix x.x /etc/rc.local security holes via /tmp/t1
Message-ID: <1991Mar1.093435.6406@hollie.rdg.dec.com>
Date: 1 Mar 91 09:34:35 GMT
References: <1991Feb28.083356.6769@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <1991Feb28.131938.29631@cs.widener.edu>
Sender: news@hollie.rdg.dec.com (Mr News)
Reply-To: jch@dyfed.rdg.dec.com (John Haxby)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 30


You don't actually need these temporary files
at all.  I got fed up of waiting for the edit on reboot
so I re-wrote it to look like this:

------------------------------
VERSION=`echo version\?s |
         adb /vmunix - |
         sed -e 1d -e 's/_version:[  \t]*//'`  2>&1 > /dev/console
if [ "$VERSION" != "" ]
then echo $VERSION
     echo -n 'update /etc/motd ...'
     mv /etc/motd /etc/motd.BAK
     (echo $VERSION; grep -v ULTRIX /etc/motd.BAK) > /etc/motd

    echo -n ' update /etc/gettytab ...'
    VERSION=`echo $VERSION | sed 's/System.*//'`
    (echo '/^ULTRIX.*/s//'"$VERSION"'\\'; echo w) |
        ed /etc/gettytab > /dev/null
    echo ' done.'
fi 2>&1                                                         >/dev/console
---------------

(The \t is a tab).  I suspect a similar thing could be done for
a mips machine (that doesn't have adb); although you could
always go back and use the slow `strings' it needs be.
-- 
John Haxby, Definitively Wrong.
Digital				<jch@wessex.rdg.dec.com>
Reading, England		<...!ukc!wessex!jch>