Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!nrl-cmf!ames!sgi!vjs From: vjs@rhyolite.SGI.COM (Vernon Schryver) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd Subject: Re: bin owns stuff (was: Installing 4.3-Tahoe on a VAX) Summary: bin is a risk Message-ID: <21791@sgi.SGI.COM> Date: 12 Sep 88 23:43:00 GMT References: <26049@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <5416@zodiac.UUCP> Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc, Mountain View, CA Lines: 23 In article <5416@zodiac.UUCP>, jordan@zooks.ads.com (Jordan Hayes) writes: - Keith Bostic writes: - Since you can't log in as "bin" (it has no password) this - shouldn't be an issue. - - Yes, but root equivalence is governed by /.rhosts, but "bin" equiv. is - governed by /etc/hosts.equiv ... and we all know that "rsh csh -i" is - as good as "rlogin" for most tasks ... Yes. Why change? Some people, outside BSD, have long thot everything should be owned by 'bin' and not uid=0. This belief seems common in System V land. Someone long gone from SGI brought it to IRIS's. I have had occassion while working in SGI's internal network to exploit variations of this hole--the usual case where someone is absent but their machine is doing terrible things to the net, not receiving mail, or whatever. Having bin own things is a Bad Idea if you want to keep people out. Is there some risk with making root own everything? Vernon Schryver Silicon Graphics vjs@sgi.com