Should kmem be read to the world?

[Carl S. Gutekunst]

In article <856 at rex.cs.tulane.edu> mb at rex.cs.tulane.edu (Mark Benard) writes:
>We just noticed that w does not work.  It returns the message "no kmem".
>Should /dev/kmem be made readable to the world or will that cause
>security problems?

Making /dev/kmem world readable is *definitely* a security problem. It looks
like someone has been careless when doing file copies or updates. As shipped,
the permissions on /dev/kmem are:

	cr--r-----  1 root     sys        3,   1 May  4  1988 /dev/kmem

and the permissions on the kmem-reader utilities are:

	-rwxr-sr-x  1 bin      sys         61440 Apr 29  1988 /bin/ps
	-rwxr-sr-x  1 bin      sys         45056 Apr 14  1988 /etc/pstat
	-rwxr-sr-x  1 bin      sys         32768 Apr 13  1988 /usr/ucb/vmstat

etc.

<csg>