Re: [TUHS] YP / NIS / NIS+ / LDAP

[Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>]

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On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 1:42 AM Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
wrote:

> On 11/05/2018 06:46 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
> > NIS would be the only other realistic option and it's just not secure
> > enough in this day and age.
>
> What do you think about NIS (sans shadow) for directory and Kerberos for
> authentication?
>

It wouldn't do it, but I guess it depends on how much you trust your
environment and your users etc. If you're intent on using a network
directory service, I'd bite the bullet and invest in setting up Kerberos
and LDAP. The thing with pairing Kerberos (for authentication) with NIS is
that while you'll have decent authentication security, nothing prevents a
malicious third party from modifying the answer from `ypserv` for some user
to set the UID to 0, thus making that user root. If authentication is
happening by users typing passwords into SSH clients, which then get sent
to SSH servers to be validated against the KDC on machines that have been
so cracked, an attacker can steal passwords by subverting the SSH server
processes.

However, if you trust your users not to do that and you're on a relatively
small, self-contained and decently secured network, then it may be fine.
From what you described earlier I think generating text files and
distributing them around (possibly with rdist or rsync) and pairing that
with kerberos would be less work and more robust.

        - Dan C.

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