On Sun, 2024-02-11 at 09:00 +0100, Ulrich Mueller wrote: > > > > > > On Sat, 10 Feb 2024, Daniel Simionato wrote: > > > I'd like to start a discussion regarding setting HOME_MODE by default in > > the /etc/login.defs file (owned by sys-apps/shadow package). > > > Upstream keeps HOME_MODE commented: > > https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/blob/3e59e9613ec40c51c19c7bb5c28468e33a4529d5/etc/login.defs#L207 > > > HOME_MODE affects only useradd and newuser commands: if HOME_MODE is set, > > they will use the specified permission when creating a user home directory, > > otherwise the default UMASK will be used. > > Since the default umask is 022, keeping HOME_MODE unset will result in home > > readable home directories created by useradd, which goes against security > > best practices. > > > The proposal is to set HOME_MODE to 0700, or at least 0750: RedHat and RH > > based distros, OpenSuse, ArchLinux all set it to 0700, Ubuntu has it at > > 0750. Debian and Gentoo are two exceptions, keeping the upstream value of > > HOME_MODE (although login.defs is changed in other ways). > > > I previously made a PR on github where you can find more details ( > > https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/35231), but as pointed in the > > comments this probably warrants some discussion beforehand. > > > I can understand the argument against the change, which is keeping in sync > > with upstream and don't risk changing the historic default behaviour of > > tools some users might rely upon. > > > I do believe though there's merit in providing safer and secure defaults, > > so I would like HOME_MODE to have a safe default value for Gentoo and > > Gentoo based distros. > > I see no strong argument either way. However, changing the default is > somewhat intrusive, so I'd prefer staying with upstream. Also, are we > aware of any breakage caused by this? > > As you've pointed out yourself, distros are inconsistent about it, > i.e. not much guidance from there. Maybe upstream would be a better > place for this discussion? > > Ulrich
You may need 0701 if you have a web server reading from ~/public_html, but that's uncommon. I've been using this for years without issue, but I think 0700 makes the most sense as the default.
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