On Fri, Jul 28, 2000 at 08:11:12AM +0000, Jim Breton wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 27, 2000 at 11:56:03PM -0800, Ethan Benson wrote:
> > pam_group is only relativly secure if your system is installed and
> > configured a certain way:
>
> Yup, some of that is mentioned in the documentation... nevertheless, it
> would be a big improvement over making the socket world-writable.
perhaps, or perhaps only trusted users should be granted gid=mouse.
> Red Hat are using a pam_console module for this, here is an excerpt from
> their advisory:
>
> "For 6.x, the /dev/gpmctl ownership issue was addressed via the
> pam_console helper mechanism. This pam module makes devices
> which need to be accessible via console users owned by them and
> no one else."
pam_console is evil. its a bigger security hole then gpmctl is.
besides that pam_console is not secure anyway since one can hold a
file descriptor open on anything except a tty thus retaining access
even when permissions/owners are changed. (that may not work on a
socket, i don't really know)
>
> > what is gpmctl actually used for anyway?
>
> I don't know exactly! ;) But here's what the gpm man page says:
>
> /dev/gpmctl A control socket for clients
gee thats descriptive...
> And the file only exists while gpm is running (it's removed when you
> stop gpm) so I am guessing it is the socket through which clients read
> mouse data.
that means you have to play games with the initscript to change its
permissions..
--
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/
PGP signature
