SUMMARY - 2 - Re: /etc/utmp

From: peter@essex.ac.uk
Date: Wed Jun 16 1993 - 08:25:19 CDT


When I tried to summarise a discussion on writeable /etc/utmp files
I passed on the suggestion of using set gid.

>"I changed utmp permissions, and made sure anything that needed to write to
>utmp was in the same group, and made it group writeable.
>
>I had no problems with it from then."

with the comment

>I have not tried this but it looks like quite a good idea.

I have been told by per@erix.ericsson.se (Per Hedeland) that this is NOT
a good idea

>No it isn't - among the programs that "need" to write utmp are
>sheltool/cmdtool - if you make these set-gid to enable them to write
>utmp, they will gladly pass on the set-gid-ness to the shell that they
>typically start, and of course then the user can write utmp to his
>heart's content from that shell or any program started by it - i.e. you
>might just as well leave it world-writable.



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