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From: Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org>
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Who's behind the UNIX filesystem permission
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2019 07:23:25 +1000 (EST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1908020714480.38830@aneurin.horsfall.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <201908011235.x71CZP2B035023@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

On Thu, 1 Aug 2019, Doug McIlroy wrote:

> A common failing of Unix administration was a proliferation of suid-root 
> programs, e.g. mail(1). I recall one system that had a hundred such 
> programs. Sudo provided a way station between suid and ACLs.

I've always maintained that if you think you need setuid root (which is a 
gaping chest wound), you can invariably get away with setgid instead.

ObTrivia: Back in the 80s, some third-party software needed to be 
installed under "root".  I was suspicious, but I had little choice but to 
allow it (manager's orders; that company went under shortly after I left 
them).  Eventually I discovered why, when I had to clean up the mess: it 
actually *unlinked* directories; yes, you read that right...

-- Dave

  parent reply	other threads:[~2019-08-01 21:24 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-08-01 12:35 Doug McIlroy
2019-08-01 16:22 ` John P. Linderman
2019-08-01 16:35   ` Arthur Krewat
2019-08-02  8:35   ` [TUHS] Additional groups and additional directory permissions arnold
2019-08-02 11:18     ` Tony Finch
2019-08-04  6:40       ` arnold
2019-08-02 12:45     ` Arthur Krewat
2019-08-02 13:06     ` Clem Cole
2019-08-02 13:28     ` Clem Cole
2019-08-02 19:00       ` Thomas Paulsen
2019-08-01 17:01 ` [TUHS] Who's behind the UNIX filesystem permission Nemo Nusquam
2019-08-01 18:26   ` Arthur Krewat
2019-08-01 20:14     ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2019-08-01 21:23 ` Dave Horsfall [this message]
2019-08-01 23:43 Noel Chiappa
2019-08-02  1:03 ` David Arnold
2019-08-02  4:36   ` Rob Pike
2019-08-07  2:35 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-08-02 14:35 Noel Chiappa
2019-08-02 15:01 ` Clem Cole
2019-08-02 15:17 ` Arthur Krewat
2019-08-02 21:23   ` Dave Horsfall
2019-08-03 12:51     ` Nemo

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