Hi Helix
I believe any radical deviation from generally accepted best practice has
then to be approved and responsibility for any breach handed to management.
It is up to management to manage risk, not me.
If they are happy with a greater likelihood of a security breach, then fine.
But how are we as a community to deal with it?
What best practices for system administration do we endorse?
Are we concerned about safety?
Regards
hg
On 4 June 2013 12:27, helix84 <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Hilton,
>
> while I can see why this alarms you and it's generally a good policy
> that I myself practice, it often doesn't matter as much as you'd
> think.
>
> Assuming the common case that a single instance of DSpace is the only
> application that runs on the server, the cases of compromising the
> tomcat account and the root account are equally disrupting - the
> attacker gains access to data that is potentially confidential and
> assumes control over the application. Whether he has control over the
> machine itself is not so important - the major harm has already been
> done.
>
> Of course, a whole different case is a multi-user or multi-application
> setup, including the case where you run both Tomcat and Apache on the
> same machine. In this case you should use separate accounts for each
> service because they are two separate attack surfaces.
>
> You can easily find a million articles about why you shouldn't use the
> root account unless it's necessary, so let me give you just one that
> discusses the opposite view:
>
> https://systemoverlord.com/2010/07/30/why-the-risk-of-running-as-root-is-overblown
>
> Don't think that I'm opposing the general rule. It just sometimes
> helps to stop and think why the general rule exists and what it
> doesn't cover. No single security measure is a snake oil.
>
> The problem with the root account is that it's not at all granular -
> you either have all the privileges or none of them. That's why more
> granular approaches have been worked on since the dawn of time, from
> capabilities to SELinux and AppArmor.
>
> Regards,
> ~~helix84
>
> Compulsory reading: DSpace Mailing List Etiquette
> https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Mailing+List+Etiquette
>
--
*Hilton Gibson*
Linux Systems Administrator
JS Gericke Library
Room 1025C
Stellenbosch University
Private Bag X5036
Stellenbosch
7599
South Africa
Tel: +27 21 808 4100 | Cell: +27 84 646 4758
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