Unix security additions

[John F Haugh II]

In article <1921 at bacchus.esa.oz.au> craig at bacchus.esa.oz.au (Craig Macbride) writes:
>In <565 at rufus.UUCP> drake at drake.almaden.ibm.com writes:
>>o  Access Control Lists (ACLs) on individual files.
>>o  Getting the passwords where they can't be publically read
>
>These are both designed to be non-standard and break other people's software.
>I'd call them good if they didn't do that.

There is NO standard for ACLs - POSIX 1003.6 is still not soup
yet, and when I argued to pick Draft 9 and stick with that until
POSIX Dot6 =was= soup, someone pointed out that there was soon
going to be YetAnotherDot6Draft.

As for shadowed passwords, it is worth pointing out that there
is NO standard for that yet either.  AT&T changed the format
of the shadow data from SVR3.2 to SVR4.  BSD is just catching
on to the idea, etc.  I have argued with the current security
department guys to have SVR4-compatible library routines for
getting the shadowed data, but I don't know what they are doing
with that suggestion.  Coding up a set of getspent(3) routines
wouldn't take much effort.  I'd do it if I had a S/6000 I could
access from home (hint, hint).

>>o  Eliminating setuid shell scripts
>
>A good idea in theory, but the security of the system is still largely a
>matter of how it's administered.

They should be removed, but only because they are a giant
security hole.  IBM has not, despite Drake's claim, removed
setuid shell scripts from the system.  For that matter, most
of the other vendors haven't either ...
-- 
John F. Haugh II        | Distribution to  | UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
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"I've never written a device driver, but I have written a device driver manual"
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